Display Web Page on Standard and Wide Screens

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Display Web Page on Standard and Wide Screens

scottjsn

I saw on some website such as yelp.com, when the monitor is with the standard aspect ratio (4:3), the page content fills the full screen; while on the wide screen with aspect ratio (16:9), the page content is displayed on the middle section of the screen (leaving the blank spaces on both the left and the right edges).

How can I do the same?

Thanks

Scott

tracknut

The yelp site you link to is a fixed with site, 960px wide, centered on the page with a red header across the top at 100% width of the screen. It doesn't change with the aspect ratio of the monitor, at least from anything I'm seeing.

jedaisoul

If you are asking how the page is centered on wider screens, that is often achieved by the css setting 'margin: 0 auto;'.

scottjsn

tracknut;1315793 wrote:
The yelp site you link to is a fixed with site, 960px wide, centered on the page with a red header across the top at 100% width of the screen. It doesn't change with the aspect ratio of the monitor, at least from anything I'm seeing.

What I try to do is the make the resolution works on IE8, like this:

if the width resolution is 1024 or less, leave it as is;
if the width resolution is above the 1024, then set the div's width to 75%

This is easy to achieve for IE9 or above. BUt it does not works on IE8.

There currently two approches:

1) bootstrap

2) respond.js

But I do not know how to do it?

Scott

tracknut

Given what you're saying about the page size, I would think your outer div would look like:

#wrap {
min-width:1024px;
max-width:75%;
}

Have you tried it like that? I don't see any reason that wouldn't work in IE8.

scottjsn

tracknut;1316017 wrote:
Given what you're saying about the page size, I would think your outer div would look like:
#wrap {
min-width:1024px;
max-width:75%;
}
Have you tried it like that? I don't see any reason that wouldn't work in IE8.

It is such a simple solution but miraculously, it worked! Now the question, while it works for both IE8 and higher, then why people need to do the media queries stuff such as:

While for the IE8, use something like,

<!--[if lt IE 9]>

<![endif]-->

Why so?

Thanks

Scott

tracknut

Using the css I gave you is a way to make a web site flexible to grow and shrink with the size of the page, which is what you wanted. Using media queries allows you many more options. A true "responsive web site" has different layouts for various page sizes (e.g. navigation on a mobile phone is not just a smaller version of navigation as seen on a computer screen), and different content for various page sizes (e.g. the content provided to a customer using a phone might be much more concise and limited than the content provided on a computer screen). So while you can get away with what you're doing to compensate for varying computer monitors, it is not a technique you'd want to use to address tablets and phones.

scottjsn

Update:

I tested the following:

When use #wrap {
min-width:1024px;
max-width:75%;
}

on IE8, if resolution is greater than 1024, it displays a vertical blank gap on the right handside, but all the content shift to the left, somewhat like: left aligned. But I never specify the left alignment.

When use <link rel='stylesheet' media='all and (min-width: 1027px)' href='css/medium.css' />
for IE9, when resolution is greater than 1024, the content is centered, leaving the equally sized blanks on both side.

How come?

scottjsn

updated above

tracknut

I would need to see the file medium.css to say. There's nothing in the style I provided to center that div, so I presume you've centered it in medium.css

Presuming you've got a doctype on the page, adding the auto margins as jedaisoul suggests above should do the trick.

scottjsn

tracknut;1316039 wrote:
I would need to see the file medium.css to say. There's nothing in the style I provided to center that div, so I presume you've centered it in medium.css

Presuming you've got a doctype on the page, adding the auto margins as jedaisoul suggests above should do the trick.

I did some adjustment as follows and it now works:

For IE9 or higher, FF, Chrome, Safari, I used one ie9_or_higher.css file:
<link rel='stylesheet' media='all and (min-width: 1027px)' href='css/ie9_or_higher.css' />

While for IE8, I used another, ie_8.css

Many thanks.

Scott

EpicWebs

Just something to note, on my blog I created a new percentage based site with jQuery masonry and the site would expand to the screen of the user which was great... Although then I noticed when I was actually reading a blog post is was kind of horrible to read because the width of the page was too wide, so I reduced it and it's easier to read at like 800px rather than 100%. Something to keep in mind.

tracknut

Yup. Always best adapt to whatever page size the user selected rather than writing code to change it for him...

scottjsn

Just to extend this thread a bit.

Out of the 1024px width, I try to create a side bar on the right hand side to host the ads, something like:

<div id="left_pane" style="width:70%>
content here
</div>

</div>

Not sure, what is the good way to do it?

Thanks

Scott

EpicWebs

Just wondering, have you added the inline styles to save on us reading extra code?
I would suggest using an external stylesheet, unless you did do the above.

If you have a fixed width of 1024px on the parent then the percentage widths of 70% and 30% will always be the same.

jedaisoul

scottjsn;1316365 wrote:
Just to extend this thread a bit.

Out of the 1024px width, I try to create a side bar on the right hand side to host the ads, something like:

<div id="parent" style="width:1024px">

<div id="left_pane" style="width:70%>
content here
</div>

<div id="side_bar" style="width:30%>
ads here
</div>

</div>

Not sure, what is the good way to do it?

Thanks

Scott

This is not an effective use of % as the parent div is fixed width anyway. Ideally you want the parent div to be 100% and the right bar (advert) div to be fixed width, whilst the left_pane (content) responds to the display width. So you need to decide what range of overall widths you wish to support (say 480px to 1024px), the width of the fixed bar (say 240px), then do some maths to work out what % of the width is available for the content. I.e.:

% = (min-width - fixed-bar) x 100 / min-width.

Which, with the suggested figures is (480 - 240) x 100 / 480 = 50%.

Using % in this way is the simplest way of making the width responsive, but is not the best. Why? because it does not maximize the screen usage on medium resolution displays. E.g. In the above example:

On a screen or window 1024px wide it uses only 1024 x 50% + 240 = 752px, leaving 272px blank (i.e. there would be a blank border of 186px either side).
The maximum of 1024px width is reached at (1024 -240) * 2 = 1568px screen or window width.

This is an acceptable performance, but, given that the most commonly used screen display used to view the web (according to w3counter) is 1366px wide, and less than 10% of web browsing is done on screens of 1600px or wider, this is not optimal.

To maximize the screen usage on medium resolution displays, you need to use either (or both):
- Position: absolute, and/or
- Media specific style sheets or media queries.

scottjsn

I used the external *.css for style.

The so called "fixed width of 1024px" works like this:

If the monitor's resolution setting is 1024 or less, then display the full screen, leaving no blank edges on either side, such as

|<-- Content -->|

If the monitor's resolution setting is greater then1024, then the page content is displayed on the middle of the screen, leaving 10% blank edges on either side, kind of

|<--blank 10%-->|<-- Content (80%)-->|<--blank 10%-->|

Now, with the side bar, I want it to look like:

Any suggestion or comments?

Thanks
Scott

P.S.

The reason I set the 1024 as the break point is that if I set the width to 100%, the content won't look nice on the wider screen, it will be either to left or fully spread across the screen; While leaving 10% on each side as blank makes it look nicer.