Subject: Re: "Stretchy" vs. Fixed-width

From: "Dave Page" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 17:24:30 -0000

Hi Josh,

Add www.microsoft.com to the list of variable ones :-)

I originally designed the current fixed-width site, which at the time various people liked, however, the one complaint that I think many of us kept hearing was that it should be variable width so ppl could utilise their screen real estate if they wished. Originally, Robert worked on just that update to the current site iirc.

Personnally, I don't care which way it goes, but based on feedback I've heard over the last couple of years, stretchy is definately preferred by others.

/D

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] on behalf of Josh Berkus
Sent: Sat 11/20/2004 8:16 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: [pgsql-www] "Stretchy" vs. Fixed-width
 
Robert, Dave:

Hey, I wanted to settle -- or at least discuss -- the "stretchy" issue on 
website designs.    Aside from Omar's design, I think this is a useful issue 
to settle for a draft website spec, and *having* browsed the archives, I 
don't feel that it was ever discussed fully.  Tom, Robert and Dave have 
expressed that they *like* variable-width in the past, but I cannot find any 
discussion on the WWW list that lays out why we would, as a group, find it 
important to choose variable over fixed width.

So, some comparisons:
If you look at corporate websites, they tend to go for fixed-width:
www.ibm.com
www.hp.com
www.redhat.com
www.ca.com
www.sun.com
http://www.novell.com/linux/suse/index.html
www.vmware.com
www.apple.com
www.harpercollins.com
... in fact, I've been trying this morning to find a large tech software or 
hardware manufacturer web site that uses variable-width, and cannot.   

The sites that go for variable width seem to be:
(a) News sites
www.the451.com
www.slashdot.org
www.theregister.co.uk
... but not, interestingly, www.cnn.com
(b) Open Source projects/companies
www.mozilla.org
www.mysql.com
http://www.jboss.org/products/index
www.kde.org
www.debian.org

... actually, it's interesting how the web world is split; the big proprietary 
software/hardware companies seem to almost universally opt for fixed-width, 
and those centered around OSS projects are pretty much universally 
variable-width.    Partly the OSS projects are explainable because many (if 
not most) of them use community website packages which tend to be universally 
variable-width.

What this means, I don't know.   Thoughts?

What it seems to show me is that either format strategy is "valid" and 
"contemporary" and that our decision should be based on practical and 
aesthetic concerns, and not on what's "too 90's".

So, do people have reasons why one is better than the other?

-- 
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command
    (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to [email-masked])

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 14:17:30 -0400 (AST)

> Add www.microsoft.com to the list of variable ones :-)

'k, you do realize that mentioning microsoft *really* doesn't work in 
"variable-widths" favor, eh? :)

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: [email-masked]           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664

---

From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 10:56:18 -0800

> "variable-widths" favor, eh? :)

Although I appreciate the humor, Microsoft is actually a good example. 
Yes they are considered by
many as "the Enemy". However they are widely respected even amongst 
people who hate them as marketing genuises.
A website although primarily a tool, it is primarily a marketing tool.

Something to think about :)

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

> TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster

-- 
Command Prompt, Inc., home of Mammoth PostgreSQL - S/ODBC and S/JDBC
Postgresql support, programming shared hosting and dedicated hosting.
+1-503-667-4564 - [email-masked] - http://www.commandprompt.com
PostgreSQL Replicator -- production quality replication for PostgreSQL

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 15:13:58 -0400 (AST)

Actually, looking at the Microsoft website Dave pointed to, it looks 
fixed-width to me ... and left justified instead of centered ... I wish 
doing a 'view source' was a bit easier to read, but from the way their 
javascript is defined at the top, it looks to be fixed to 855?

<body onLoad="initPopup()" onUnload="exitPopup()">
<script type="text/javascript">
   var isW;isW=(document&&document.body.clientWidth&&document.body.clientWidth>=895&&document.getElementById);
</script>

On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, Joshua D. Drake wrote:

> Although I appreciate the humor, Microsoft is actually a good example. Yes 
> they are considered by
> many as "the Enemy". However they are widely respected even amongst people 
> who hate them as marketing genuises.

----

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 15:16:27 -0400 (AST)

Note that if you go to a sub page, their "center content" appear to be 
fixed-width, while their top/bottom banner appears to be variable-width 
... *really* looks odd ...

On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, Marc G. Fournier wrote:

> fixed-width to me ... and left justified instead of centered ... I wish doing 
> a 'view source' was a bit easier to read, but from the way their javascript 
> is defined at the top, it looks to be fixed to 855?
>
>  var 
> isW;isW=(document&&document.body.clientWidth&&document.body.clientWidth>=895&&document.getElementById);
> </script>
>
>
>
>
>

----

---

From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 11:16:35 -0800

Marc G. Fournier wrote:

> fixed-width to me ... and left justified instead of centered ... I 
> wish doing a 'view source' was a bit easier to read, but from the way 
> their javascript is defined at the top, it looks to be fixed to 855?

Yes it is a fixed width site. I was just making comment to your 
Microsoft comment :).
Also I prefer fixed width sites. A fixed width site is much easier to 
maintain, sets
specific guidelines for you content presentation and makes you actually 
think about
how you are going to layout the site.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

>
> <body DEFANGED_OnLoad="initPopup()" DEFANGED_OnUnload="exitPopup()">
> <DEFANGED_script type="text/javascript">
>   var 
>>> 'k, you do realize that mentioning microsoft *really* doesn't work 
>>> in "variable-widths" favor, eh? :)
>>
>>
>> Although I appreciate the humor, Microsoft is actually a good 
>> example. Yes they are considered by

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 15:41:48 -0400 (AST)

On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, Joshua D. Drake wrote:

> Yes it is a fixed width site. I was just making comment to your Microsoft 
> comment :).

Ya, it was your comment that prompted me to look at the site a bit closer 
:)

----

---

From: Justin Clift <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 09:59:56 +1100

Joshua D. Drake wrote:
<snip>

 > A fixed width site is much easier to maintain

For something that's based on opinion, shouldn't we then start looking 
at other qualities?

For example, the above comment by Joshua "A fixed width site is much 
easier to maintain" seems to be accurate for one of the most important 
points for the web team.

We don't have copious amounts of time to tweak stuff, so taking the 
lower-maintenance approach would be a better idea wouldn't it?

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift

<snip>

---

From: Omar Kilani <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 18:10:07 -0500

Hi,

> Microsoft comment :). Also I prefer fixed width sites. A fixed width 
> site is much easier to maintain, sets specific guidelines for you 
> content presentation and makes you actually think about how you are 
> going to layout the site.

Upon further consideration of the fixed width vs. "stretchy" issue, we 
have decided that there is one part of the site that would benefit 
greatly from a stretchy design, and that is documentation.

See the example we've created:

http://postgresql.tinysofa.com/files/docs.html

The reason that we believe that variable width is a better approach for 
documentation in particular is that people have different viewing 
preferences when referring to manuals or books online. The readability 
of online docs is improved if it is possible for the user to resize the 
text and the width of the browser window to accommodate their viewing 
preferences. Some may want to use all of their real estate while reading 
the docs, while others may only want to use 1/4 of their screen so that 
they can refer to the docs whilst coding at the same time.

(Having said that, it's worth noting that while our example page has no 
*minimum* width for text, it does have a sensible maximum (IE tweaks 
pending) to stop it from scaling and becoming unreadable on huge screens.)

However, while there are compelling reasons for docs to be variable 
width, we don't believe that people would be reading the rest of the 
site in the same way. It is most likely that somebody visiting the 
PostgreSQL website would be viewing it with their window maximized, and 
it is unlikely that they would want to refer to content outside of docs 
whilst performing another activity (as in the example above). Therefore, 
it's unlikely that someone would want to view the site in a width 
smaller than the minimum of 800.

We don't believe there is much of a case for allowing the site (apart 
from docs) to expand beyond the fixed layout width of 800. As mentioned 
by others on this list, variable width produces unpredictable results on 
a carefully designed layout. We believe that being able to control the 
layout from a design perspective, and the ability of the user to view 
the site as the designer intended (the way the majority of users would 
want to view it anyway) are good arguments for fixed width design and 
why so many designers choose this option.

Omar and Emily