People are arguing about which layout is better since web exists. Some like it fixed, others prefer it fluid (or elastic). I always used fluid layouts, mostly because I really hate to see narrow column with unreadable small text on the screen with large resolution - and I used to see it a lot. Naturally - large companies going after broad audience don't want to alienate even tiny portion of potential customers and always go with lowest common denominatorW. Lately, though, I start noticing these ugly sites disappear. To confirm my guess, I went to Google analyticsW for my blog and looked at screen resolution for clients that access this site. Wow... you guys! Every time I visited local library, I felt bad for people still using low-end computers with small screens and thought about myself as been rich and spoiled (hmm… technically anyway). Not anymore! It turns out - I am the one using cheap low-end monitors here.
This discovery lead to uneasy decision I made - I will revolt and try something... old. I'm switching to fixed layout. Here are my reasons:
- It looks decent on wide variety of screens - as long as you don't have to support 640x480 anymore...
- It is much easier to design and support.
- You can guaranty that everybody sees (almost) exactly what you see.
- This greatly simplifies your main task, which is supposed to be content (and not layout) creation.
Let me know if you hate it and think this is a blinder on my site :)