[WEB4LIB] Screen Resolution Settings

[Thomas Dowling]

> I have some stats on people who've been looking at sections of the
site but has 
> anyone come across any statistics or research about how many people
have each 
> resolution generally on the 'Net? I've tried a few search engines but
not come up 
> with anything really useful as yet...
> 

[Boy, it seems like we just ran through this subject two weeks ago.]

Last time around, I wasted a little time trying to see if current
browsers could handle a page whose dimensions were stated neither in
percentages nor in pixels, but entirely in text-based measurements.
Regardless of screen size, window size, or resolution, the only
assumption this page makes is that the user's configurations combine to
make a sensible line length for reading.  I'm not entirely convinced
that this could be a primary design model for web sites, but it does
take into account the fact that line length (measured in ems) is an
important factor in comprehension.  It's also a relative measurement
(unlike pixels), but relative to the text people are reading, instead
of to the artifact of the window (unlike percentages).

The result was pretty successful for an hour's work (my apologies to
the folks whose content I ripped off for the experiment--you know who
you are).  With some CSS tweaking, the results were comparably rendered
in IE5, NC4.5, and Operas 3.6, and as with most good CSS writing, it's
perfectly legible in non-CSS browsers.  At the very least, it's a
reminder that resolution-independent writing really can work.

So, for what it's worth, it's at
<URL:http://maroon.ohiolink.edu/foo/>.

Thomas Dowling
Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu