Re: WEB PAGE TOO WIDE?

From: Scott M. (s-mar_at_BADSPAMsnet.net)
Date: 03/09/04 

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2004 21:49:33 -0500

> It's a good practice not to demand a large screen but a
> generally poor one to mandate the exact size unless you
> control output devices. If you stick to reasonable HTML,
> it will look fine regardless of window size let alone
> screen size. (Checking your page on a Pilot is a pretty
> good test.) If you need a table to render actual tabular
> data, by all means do so, but don't use it as a page
> formatting aid designed to force your users to have the
> same resolution, window size, and printer as you.
> (Assuming you even tried to print your page.)

I'm sorry, but if you walked into a room full of web professionals with that
argument, they'd laugh you right back out.

No one is mandating anything. If you build a site geared for the 800 x 600
resolution, it will fit into that size and larger resolutions. If a user
happens to have an older, smaller monitor that is running at 640 x 480
(which statistics show is a very small percentage of users), then they can
still view the page, but it will be wider than their screen is. In fact,
using JavaScript, thbe page can determine what the screen resolution is and
adjust to specific table sizes appropriate for that width.

The use of tables as a means of determining page layout is an absolute
standard for any good page design. If a page needs to be rendered in a
handheld device, then HTML is not the language for the page, WML (wireless
markup language) is.

> CSS, is generally better than tables as page formatting
> but there's already quite a lot of CSS abuse going on
> too ;-)

It's not an either/or situation. CSS can and is used WITH tables for very
precise layout.

I'm sorry, but I do this for a living and I have trained thousands of people
on how to properly use HTML. I am aware of W3C standards and ADA (Americans
With Disabilities Act) guidelines for proper page design. I have spent
years in web development with (HTML, CSS, XML, ASP, ASP.NET, etc.) and I
have to say that this is not a matter of my personal opinion. You are
certainly entitled to your opinion, but your comments only lead me to
believe that you really don't know enough about the technologies involved or
have any real practical experience building and testing web pages/web sites
because if you did, you be able to see how ridiculous your comments sound.
It's like saying, "You shouldn't use math in order to build a ship that can
travel to the moon."

The very first thing that should be done when planning a web site is to
determine who the target audience is and build for that level (and up). The
last step in development is to test the pages in every possible resolution,
platform, browser and version that meets the original target audience's
potential configuration.

A web page should look the SAME in each possible configuration tested (and
it IS possible to achieve this if you know how to properly use HTML/CSS). I
want to go to sleep at night KNOWING that all users will see the same thing
when they visit my pages. Letting the browser "figure out on its own" how
to render the page (which is what you are suggesting by advocating the lack
of use of tables and sizes) is NOT an acceptable option since it will result
in different configurations seeing different version of the page rendered.

Again, the *proper* use of HTML/CSS results in a page that works for
everyone. No doubt, your experience has been with pages that were not
*properly* designed.

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