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Kate wondered: <<We've been working on CSS layouts for awhile. When we
send the sites for critique at all the usual HTML/CSS, particularly
ALT.html.critique (which Bonnie Granat's a big fan of), sites, we've
been told that we should be using fluid designs. Blogs typically use
them so that the page stretches across the screen.>>
There are a few good reasons to use a fixed design, such as when the
goal is to show off your typographic skills or when the physical
relationships between chunks at different points on the screen are
important. But in that case, you should be considering using PDF or a
graphic, where you can precisely control positioning irrespective of
the browser being used. If positioning isn't crucial, then fluid design
is always a better choice.
You can also offer two designs: one fluid, one fixed. I haven't tried
this, but it should be possible to use identical content and simply
apply different templates to it, then import that identical content
using an "include" code in the HTML. That's more work, and I have no
idea how well it will work across browsers and browser versions.
<<But, one thing many clients utterly hate is a site that stretches
across the screen making the line lengths too long for ease of reading.
I agree, coming from a publishing industry background. It doesn't make
any sense if the point is to develop a site that people will read, why
make it hard to read?>>
The quick answer is to teach them how to resize the browser window
appropriately. If they don't know how to do that, they're uncomfortably
kludging their way through life on the Web. If your audience is really
that clueless, why not include a "Customize the display" link at the
top of the list of links to explain how? You can pretty much always
define a browser window size that will break any layout, so why bother
trying to design the perfect layout?
If you're feeling more obtrusive, you could probably size the windows
for them via Javascript. That lets you control the window size, at
least initially, but you run the risk of annoying people who really do
know what they want in terms of window size and don't want you telling
them what size they should be using.
If you're alreadys using CSS, it should be easy to define the left and
right margins of the text areas, though I don't know whether CSS lets
you set a maximum line width. (If so, that would be the way to go.)
It's arguably even easier to accomplish your goal in vanilla HTML:
treat the text part of the page as a table containing only a single
cell, set the table width to ca. 80% of the screen width, and center
the table. Kludgy, but largely effective because even with a huge
screen, the text will generally fit within an acceptable if suboptimal
line length.
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