Resolution Dependant Layouts:

n30_mkii · 27 May 2008 at 12:42

I'm just in the process of putting together a custom photo gallery. The gallery uses jscript, ajax and xml to generate the thumbs etc and the rest of the page is php. If javascript is not enabled the site falls back to a php gallery. The ajax is used to stop page reloads when navigating the gallery.

Ok so the main question is, what is the best way to utilise the space on larger screen res's but be compatible with smaller 1024x768 res (maybe even 800x600).

I'm currently displaying around 10 thumbs and a main image, but should I add more thumbs when the display is larger or just increase the size of them etc?

I'm thinking of a liquid layout with resolution dependent style sheets?

Can anyone give me any advice on what they would want to see / happen?

I could make it look good at higher res with many thumbs and then reduce the quantity down when the res is smaller?

Makhaira · 27 May 2008 at 12:52

Vertical scrolling isn't an issue, so you could just display a set number of thumbnails on a page, and set their parent container to be an appropriate portion of the screen width. The browser will then render in a line break once you exceed the width of the parent container.

If I've misunderstood what you were asking then I apologise, a picture is always worth a thousand words!

Resolution dependent style sheets are a real pain in terms of maintenance, and also mean that anyone on a non-standard res is likely to find your site appears broken to them.

n30_mkii · 27 May 2008 at 13:08

Thanks for the quick reply. Here is the mockup image

As you can see the main layout could be liquid, but it's the gallery side of things I'm thinking of. I don't really want it to fall on multiple lines, I just want to use the left and right nav.

Confused · 27 May 2008 at 20:36

Also remember that people don't always browse full-screen - especially those on higher resolution screens. I have a 1920x1200 screen, and very, very, very rarely is the web browser maximised. So anything that reads the screen resolution is a no-no.

whitecrook · 29 May 2008 at 16:24

there seems to be a few sites i vist now that seem to be fixed at weird res's. I run at many different res's but my browser window is rarely maximzied, usualy sits somwhere between 800 and 1024 wide.

Thank god for Opera's fit to width function. Basically the user should always be allowed to choose how they view the content.