I learned something yesterday. Possibly this is elementary for most of you, but it gave me a great thrill when it succeeded in the end. I am not a professional Web designer. It is just a hobby for me. So for lack of anybody else with the know-how I designed a Website for our Department at work in 2002 using FrontPage 2000 (I now use FrontPage 2003). At that time all of us had 14 or 15 inch monitors and it looked quite OK. Then a year ago when we were given new hardware those who qualified for new hardware were given 19 inch HP LCD monitors which was like jumping from the archaic to modern. I then received complaints from people who still had the smaller resolution screens that they could not see the shortcuts in the title bar of the Website, i.e. like the ones of Frihost above. Some of the shortcuts folded in or disappeared on their screens.
I then had to puzzle about this, and after working it out over a month or so came up with a solution. Since I am a very basic designer I use tables, so I adjusted all of the tables to 100% so that the Website could expand in proportion to the resolution settings. At that time I thought I had to accept that the Website that had been designed will never look good again. For example I had a collage of photos in one row, and they were now spread with lots of colour space in between. Some of the people who had not been upgraded and had 15 inch LCD screens, or were using the Website on 15 inch laptop screens were OK, but quite a growing number of people with 19 inch LCD screens had this stretched look of the Website. When my boss got a 21 inch HP LCD monitor it really looked awful to me. He thought he could live with it, but it really irritated me.
I could do nothing at the time as there was no time but when I started to tinker on my new Website (a tiny one for Frihost) this weekend, thought I would make it my mission to get to the bottom of this challenge. It is then that I learned that it was as simple as the resolution at which the screen has been set, and that one had two choices. You could either set your table at 100% to expand to the size of the resolution setting, or set the table properties to a specific pixel width for the smallest resolution screen i.e.:
1. Click anywhere in the Table (I use FrontPage software)
2. Right click and select Table Properties
3. Select "In Pixels" in the Table Properties (instead of "In Percentage")
4. Tick "Specify Width" and enter specific number of pixels
5. 772 pixels worked for me for a 800 by 600 pixel minimum resolution screen
To check how many pixels are needed - if you have a larger resolution screen, reset
the resolution of your monitor to the minimum that you would like to aim at. I set my
19 inch LCD to 800X600 (some may need a different minimum at the next level).
This way I could work out that 772 pixels would work for all the LCDs and laptops
in our Department at work. Eureka!!!!
6. I found I had a table within a table so I had to set the outer table also at 772 pixels
So instead of a stretched Website, I now have one that has been designed for the minimum resolution screen of 800 by 600 pixels - equal to a 15 inch LCD screen. The Website now looks much better and much more professional as it is nice and tight again, everything in the right proportion rather than the stretched 100% percentage look of before.
Can imagine some of the experts must be laughing as possibly DreamWeaver and the more sophiticated software cater for this, but at my hobby level am side-kick happy about this latest discovery!
Last edited by deanhills on Sat May 31, 2008 2:13 pm; edited 7 times in total
I then had to puzzle about this, and after working it out over a month or so came up with a solution. Since I am a very basic designer I use tables, so I adjusted all of the tables to 100% so that the Website could expand in proportion to the resolution settings. At that time I thought I had to accept that the Website that had been designed will never look good again. For example I had a collage of photos in one row, and they were now spread with lots of colour space in between. Some of the people who had not been upgraded and had 15 inch LCD screens, or were using the Website on 15 inch laptop screens were OK, but quite a growing number of people with 19 inch LCD screens had this stretched look of the Website. When my boss got a 21 inch HP LCD monitor it really looked awful to me. He thought he could live with it, but it really irritated me.
I could do nothing at the time as there was no time but when I started to tinker on my new Website (a tiny one for Frihost) this weekend, thought I would make it my mission to get to the bottom of this challenge. It is then that I learned that it was as simple as the resolution at which the screen has been set, and that one had two choices. You could either set your table at 100% to expand to the size of the resolution setting, or set the table properties to a specific pixel width for the smallest resolution screen i.e.:
1. Click anywhere in the Table (I use FrontPage software)
2. Right click and select Table Properties
3. Select "In Pixels" in the Table Properties (instead of "In Percentage")
4. Tick "Specify Width" and enter specific number of pixels
5. 772 pixels worked for me for a 800 by 600 pixel minimum resolution screen
To check how many pixels are needed - if you have a larger resolution screen, reset
the resolution of your monitor to the minimum that you would like to aim at. I set my
19 inch LCD to 800X600 (some may need a different minimum at the next level).
This way I could work out that 772 pixels would work for all the LCDs and laptops
in our Department at work. Eureka!!!!
6. I found I had a table within a table so I had to set the outer table also at 772 pixels
So instead of a stretched Website, I now have one that has been designed for the minimum resolution screen of 800 by 600 pixels - equal to a 15 inch LCD screen. The Website now looks much better and much more professional as it is nice and tight again, everything in the right proportion rather than the stretched 100% percentage look of before.
Can imagine some of the experts must be laughing as possibly DreamWeaver and the more sophiticated software cater for this, but at my hobby level am side-kick happy about this latest discovery!
Last edited by deanhills on Sat May 31, 2008 2:13 pm; edited 7 times in total
