[bens1901]

Let's say you want to make html tables that are an assigned width. What are the best widths for various screen resolutions? Each graphic artist seems to give a different number.

640x480 (600 pixels wide is good. is there a larger number that's good)

800x600

etc.

I'm trying to see if there's a commonly accepted minimum table width for these different resolutions. Hopefully this won't turn into a heated debate.

-Ben

[Powaqqatsi]

I would say 600 to 800 since I don't care anymore about resolutions below 1024x768, almost everybody has 1024x768 or higher these days.

[Simon Mundy]

My baseline is screen width - 30 pixels:

640 width = 610px
800 width = 770px
1024 width = 994px

I find that works pretty consistently over most browser/platforms

[thePurpleGiant]

Originally posted by Powaqqatsi:
I would say 600 to 800 since I don't care anymore about resolutions below 1024x768, almost everybody has 1024x768 or higher these days.

I wish I had your clients. Using my webstats, 47% of people are still on 800x600.

Frustration city.

[Powaqqatsi]

Well I didn't realize that there were so much 800x600 people left. Maybe I should change my strategy a littlebit

And I design with 1024x768 in mind but most of the time they work out fine on 800x600 .

[calimehtar]

It used to be that 780px was the magic number for 800x600. The 20 px is for scrollbars in windows 9x and 2000. With XP, though, the scrollbars got a bit wider. Something around 760-770 will work better. I've never designed for 640x480

[Peter]

I just have it set as 80% works perfectly on all resolutions.

[philzilla]

if i'm having to set a pixel with, for something like, say, a table with rounded corners, i'll probably set it to 740

[daimoni]

.

[sambeau]

Originally posted by daimoni:
Relative sizing all the way, baby!

I dunno. I kinda like a fixed width.
Centered is nice at the moment.
Though I did rather like a traditional pinned to top left.
I used to be mad for three horizontal frames of variable width, but it's all a bit year 2000 now

perhaps its time for a resurgence of a liitle fixed width square in the middle..

[sambeau]

Originally posted by daimoni:
Personally, I detest fixed width tables, and avoid them whenever possible. Relative sizing all the way, baby!

Plus fixed width table do load much faster. Especially complex nested ones..

I once built a site out of relatively sized nested tables that took IE/5.5 on a bog standard PC over 7 minutes to render..

[daimoni]

.

[mania]

well css only would be nice but you know a lot of people still haven't upgraded their browsers and can't see css. I know it sux but there is nothing you can do to force them. tables are here to stay for a long time.

if you look at some big name sites they all use tables and most are fixed width

from apple.com

table width="725"

from cnn.com

table width="770"

from yahoo.com

table width=570

from microsoft.com (still not using standard xhtml of lowercase tags)

TABLE WIDTH="100%"

from mozilla.org (shame on them also for using all caps)

TABLE WIDTH="100%">

[Griggsy]

best way on x to check width is to use Small Screen x , and muck about with safari, mozilla and ie (or other browser, until you get a table setting that suits your needs and seems the same across all browsers cos they can change