Site resolution.
Leigh reviewed my blog today, and something that she found odd, is actually not odd at all.
When I had my site designed, my parents were using webtv. They had their own tv monitor, but one of the things about web tv we learned, is there is no horizontal scrolling for people who use it.
They couldn't see half my site!
So we made sure that no matter what screen resolution this blog was being viewed at, the sidebar would slide inward, and the posts would compress, so that the site could be viewed.
Please don't ask me how Jenni (my designer) did it, I have no idea and she is longer online.
This is how you test whether or not your site is viewable at lower resolutions, or if it's getting cut off.
So if you go there and plug in my url, you will see that it fits at most screen resolutions by compressing the posts section, and bringing in the sidebar.
The only one it does not compress enough at, is 544x384.
That's the size my folks were originally looking at my site with, it was too tiny, so they bought a smaller tv to hook up to the web tv, and the screen resolution was still tiny at 600x480, but if you go and test my url and press the test button for that size, my whole blog appears with no overlap, and only a small sliver of the header, cut off.
Comments
I'm not getting this. It opened very small windows for each size, in which one would have to scroll back and forth and up and down to view my site. I know that's not the case in the more popularly used sizes. Are they implying that that is what everyone sees when they open my site? What gives?
Posted by: skeet | April 22, 2007 6:34 PM
Yup, that's what people see when they use anything lower than 1024x768, to view your site
Posted by: kat | April 22, 2007 6:40 PM
That is a cool tool. :) I have to go back and play.
Posted by: Lisa | April 22, 2007 10:48 PM
I figured it was how my screen was set up. :) But you wanted me to be honest. I still love reading your blog!
Posted by: Leigh | April 23, 2007 9:13 AM
the resolution of webtv would be very low, which is why your site is narrow. crt tvs have much lower resolution than monitors.
that site though, seems old. when i have tracked what resolution my visitors use, its usually 1024x786. very few people use 800 x 600 anymore, and no one uses 640 x 480. i usually design sites at 750 px wide. imo people using 800 x 600 are used to scrolling...
Posted by: Shane | April 23, 2007 1:01 PM
That may be true, and most of my visitors are using 1024x768, but I do have about 2% of my readers using webtv. So I make sure everyone can view my site without scrolling.
I hardly think a bit of white space is going to ruin someone's reading experience ....LOL
Posted by: kat | April 23, 2007 1:04 PM