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ecchi · 2005-09-04, 06:25 AM

RE : "1024x768 is going to take over 800x600" yes, but remember that most people who use 1024x768 do not use full screen, so anything wider than about 750 is not going to look good even on bigger monitors.

If you go to the "general business" board you will find that threads are regularly started on the subject of width so I won't duplicate threads by posting what has already been said. However two points that do get neglected are:

1. Posts often say things like "according to my stats only 23% of people still use 800x600, and I am not going to cater for that minority" however that is nearly a quarter of all surfers, do you really want to loose that many surfers ? and even when it drops to 10%, or even 5%, why would any sane webmaster throw away these surfers? (And that does not even take into account the large quantity who have bigger screens but do not surf on full screen mode, you will also loose them.)

2. On occasion I have seen posts from people who make their sites wider than 800 quoting their stats (eg. "only 23% of people still use 800x600") and the stats they quote are nearly always lower than the ones I get (in the case of this quote, I was getting 49% at that time). This is because I always stick to the max 750 rule (or width ="100%"), but as they do not, surfers with an 800 width screen stopped visiting their site, affecting their stats. In other words, they had already lost 26% of their surfers by the time they looked at their stats !!!

Bottom line: Once you allow for the frame and scroll bars, Explorer gives you about viewable 760 pixels width on 800 resolution, say 750 to be safe. If you make your site wider than that you will loose an appreciable number of surfers, and never get as many bookmarkers as you would otherwise have got.

2005-09-04, 06:25 AM	#7
ecchi Banned Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: About to be evicted!!!! Posts: 4,082	RE : "1024x768 is going to take over 800x600" yes, but remember that most people who use 1024x768 do not use full screen, so anything wider than about 750 is not going to look good even on bigger monitors. If you go to the "general business" board you will find that threads are regularly started on the subject of width so I won't duplicate threads by posting what has already been said. However two points that do get neglected are: 1. Posts often say things like "according to my stats only 23% of people still use 800x600, and I am not going to cater for that minority" however that is nearly a quarter of all surfers, do you really want to loose that many surfers ? and even when it drops to 10%, or even 5%, why would any sane webmaster throw away these surfers? (And that does not even take into account the large quantity who have bigger screens but do not surf on full screen mode, you will also loose them.) 2. On occasion I have seen posts from people who make their sites wider than 800 quoting their stats (eg. "only 23% of people still use 800x600") and the stats they quote are nearly always lower than the ones I get (in the case of this quote, I was getting 49% at that time). This is because I always stick to the max 750 rule (or width ="100%"), but as they do not, surfers with an 800 width screen stopped visiting their site, affecting their stats. In other words, they had already lost 26% of their surfers by the time they looked at their stats !!! Bottom line: Once you allow for the frame and scroll bars, Explorer gives you about viewable 760 pixels width on 800 resolution, say 750 to be safe. If you make your site wider than that you will loose an appreciable number of surfers, and never get as many bookmarkers as you would otherwise have got.