Re: Typical screen resolution, these days (or, WHY IS CSS the way it is -- haven't we learned ANYTHING in ALL THESE YEARS no, guess we have not)?

[Emily Berk <emily -at- armadillosoft -dot- com>]

Hi All:

Thanks for all the responses.

It's possible that I am just missing something obvious about CSS.  But I'll try to lay out (!) my problem more clearly:

1.  The site targets project managers of large construction/engineering companies.  I'm picturing guys who used to wear hard hats but they are now sitting at desks in the back offices of fairly large, non-high-tech industries.  (So their PCs/monitors are not the latest greatest, but not bad.)

2.  The webpages have already been designed (not by me).  The part of the screen that worries me the most is a 3-column, single row table.  Each column in the row contains a graphic.  The graphics touch seamlessly and have horizontal lines that must touch at the column borders.  There is text in the left and right hand columns.  The text is generated from a database so may change in length day-by-day.  It is rather long and the text on the left may be significantly longer or shorter than the text on the right.  

3.  The graphics cannot repeat because they look stupid when they tile.  Also, when they tile the seams do not match up.

4.  I do NOT wish to use JavaScript or any other client-side language to figure out what the screen resolution is.

5.  I am using PHP on the server, so if I know what the resolution is going to be, I can hard-code the styles appropriately, but I don't think that is going to help me any, is it?

So, what I was hoping to do was to create a liquid layout using percentages rather than pixels or ems.  But, because the graphics need to stretch, I end up having to put them into tables.  It's making for a very complex development process.

So, I've checked out the sites y'all have suggested and I see how they'd be GREAT for static text-only sites with monocolor backgrounds.  But I don't see how to make this work for text that changes based on server-side conditions unless I use JavaScript.

Am I missing something obvious (or maybe something not obvious) about CSS?

-- Emily

At 01:32 PM 12/14/2004 -0500, TechComm Dood wrote:
>> I've seen surveys from around 1998 that show that users mostly had 800 x 600, but that even then 1024 x 768 was fairly typical.  And, yes, I know that there are lots of laptops out there, but laptops are often docked on people's desktops, and they aren't on the Internet as much as other PCs, so I'm not too worried about them.
>
>Um, I run *my* laptop at 1600x1200... ;-)
>
>Really, how is CSS not working for you? I prefer sites that don't
>design for a target resolution, because I will access it at a variety
>of machines, including my PDA and cell phone. If I can't render a site
>in a readable manner on my Pocket PC, I have to leave it, which makes
>the site 0% usable for me.
>
>Do you happen to have a target audience, or are you doing a generic web site?

Emily Berk
http://www.armadillosoft.com



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