By heleng on

What is the best screen resolution to develop in? I have been developing my site in 1280 x 1024. I have just had a look at it in 1024 x 600 and 1024 x 768. It doesn't look very good in these resolutions. What is the most common resolution and should I use a fixed width or a fluid layout? Are other resolutions still used?

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Comments

TimeBandit’s picture

TimeBandit commented

1024x768 is current majority, give or take, with a significant majority at 800x600. We currently target 1024 though. Screens are getting much wider these days though... you just have to google "browser stats" or some such to get an idea of what the trends are. If you want to be more specific about it you should check your own stats to see what the majority of your users are set at, since you want to try to cater to your audience. For example if its an older audience or education facility you might have to be more concerned about 800x600. If you're in a high-end industry you might be able to get away with 1280 now.

Just remember "what looks good on my screen" is not a good judge of a web site. Monitor colour is awful on many monitors, the resolution may not be set at what your average users is set at, etc.

Way Cool Web Design | Theming Drupal 5

heleng’s picture

heleng commented

I decided to write my web site at 1024 x 768. I have a header that is a specific size. My problem now is that when tested at a screen resolution of 1280 width then the header tries to repeat itself. This looks awful because it has a picture in the header. I pressume if I take the repeat out then the header will look just as aswful at a resolution of 1280. Is there any way around this? Thanks

TimeBandit’s picture

TimeBandit commented

are you trying to create a fluid layout, one that stretches or shrinks to fit a browser window? To answer your specific question, yes, take the repeat off to keep it from repeating. You either need to:

  • if creating a fluid site, take into account the fact the browser window size will change and design for it. I can't teach you this, you'd need to learn it yourself through trial and error.
  • if creating a fixed width site, pick a resolution target and design for it, trying to keep in mind there are other resolutions. for example if you've designed for 1024 you still want your most important content no lower than 410 pixels down the screen since this is all a 800x600 user sees before needing to scroll down.

Way Cool Web Design | Theming Drupal 5