[ale] OT easy html editor

[George Carless]

> > This is never more 
> > obvious than being in a school loaded with 800 x 600 monitors trying to 
> > view a page written by someone who has a nice, sparkling 19" 1280 x 960 
> > monitor and loves to use the full width- "Well, it looks fine on my 
> > computer." - while the rest of us are scrolling right to see what was 
> > hidden.
> 
> This, is a lousy developer.  Unless you can code your page so that it 
> will be reasonably presented at a minimum of 800x600, as well as your 
> 1280x960, you should code for the minimum.  I've got a 21 and 22 inch 
> monitor side by side, but I still view websites with a browser window 
> that's 800x600.  I'd say 50% of the websites I view don't fit that size 
> window.  That's not a problem for me, but what about the girl who's got 
> the 14-15 monitor?  There are still plenty of them out there.  What 
> about those mini laptops?  Sure some of them will go to 1280x960, but 
> then you need a magnifying glass to read the bloody page.

The converse is also true, though: it's a pain in the neck to have a Web 
site that loads in what amounts to a small window in the size of a large 
screen.  There is a debate, generally, between 'fixed' and 'fluid' 
designs for the Web - where fluid designs generally resize according to 
window size.  The problem with these is that from a design perspective 
they have their own problems; it's quite difficult for anything but the 
most basic task to achieve a design that resizes elegantly to different 
screen resolutions etc. but that still follows other design/usability 
guidelines such as the number of words on a line, etc.  Some developers 
go for a hybrid model where certain elements of a page are fixed, while 
others are fluid.  Until recently I was a staunch advocate of the fluid 
width approach, but I've recently found that fixed width designs have a 
number of advantages in terms of ease of placement and clarity of design 
that in certain cases outweight the disadvantages.  As is often the case 
with these things, there is a balance to be achieved--a balance that 
needs to consider such things as likely audience of the site, etc.  And, 
to play devil's advocate, there may be a point for many developers where 
a decision has to be made as to whom to support: I'm damned if I'm going 
to worry about someone who's still at 640x480, for example, and even 
800x600 seems rather idiosyncratic in this day and age.  

--George