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Sara Sue Clarke wonders: <<The [Web] site design is rectangular-basically
just the size to accommodate one screen full of info
at a time eliminating the necessity of scrolling-in keeping with good web
design standards. The template is basically designed for 800x600 to
accommodate 15 inch monitors. It works well and looks great at this size but
it isn't (in it's present state) scaleable.>>
There's a bit of a tradeoff between flexibility and efficient presentation.
The advantage of setting a well-designed, legible template to use fixed
dimensions is that you know the presentation will be usable. The downside,
as you note, is that the user can't resize the window without some of the
design moving offscreen. On the plus side, you won't have users resizing the
browser window to 1 inch in width and having your table turn into 10
single-character-wide columns of text. I have more sympathy for the
fixed-width approach if I need to align stuff in columns because I'm taking
the time to present the information legibly.
<<It's also my understanding that if set as a per centage it will
scale/expand to monitor size. Originally, I was told to "just design the
site" as I wished and "go for it". Now clients are "concerned" that it
doesn't scale. Is there an easy quick solution to make it scale/expand?>>
Yes, all you need to do is define the properties of each column such that it
uses a fixed percentage of the screen width. If you're worried about the
problem I mentioned above (e.g., resizing the screen into illegibility), try
this workaround: create a simple graphic (e.g., a line of transparent
pixels) for each column that defines the minimum width for that column, then
insert it in an otherwise empty row at the top of the column. I haven't
tested this extensively, but in general, this approach should let users
shrink the window as much as they want, but will prevent the columns from
shrinking below the size defined by the graphics. (Think of this as putting
a tennis ball in a balloon: the balloon can always get larger, but it can't
shrink smaller than the tennis ball.)
--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
(try ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca if you get no response)
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada
"I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my
telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my
telephone."--Bjarne Stroustrup (originator of C++ programming language)
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