Page Design

[spoiledkid]

What is the preffered choice for designing aspx pages on internet which works good in both resolutions (800/600 & above) on most browsers ?? What are the standards ? What controls do you guys use .. Is it just Tables or Panels or what ? Some direction and guidance to me here would be appreciated ..

[-TPM-]

I've heard using tables is considered 'bad practice'. Personnaly I use Java to set the page size.

[mendhak]

I've heard using tables is considered 'bad practice'. Personnaly I use Java to set the page size.

Sorry, you won't get what I found so funny.

Some prefer tables, some prefer divs. I prefer tables, and use percentages in widths so that it will work across resolutions.

I try to keep the HTML as 'light' as possible. In other words, during the prototype design of an application, I avoid using ASP.NET controls (or java ), just keeping it pure HTML and CSS.

[alex_read]

Ditto! I use plain old fashioned tables to layout the page - just set your width's using percentage values rather than absolute pixel values. i.e. "100%" rather than "100px" and this will automatically update when the page is resized or loaded

[basilisk]

Ditto also - I use tables to layout the pages and use percentages as well. I also prefer using the HTML window in visual studio.Net and handcoding placement of controls etc rather than the designer as when you switch back and forth to the designer it changes your code formatting which i hate.

[-TPM-]

Sorry, you won't get what I found so funny.

Some prefer tables, some prefer divs. I prefer tables, and use percentages in widths so that it will work across resolutions.

I try to keep the HTML as 'light' as possible. In other words, during the prototype design of an application, I avoid using ASP.NET controls (or java ), just keeping it pure HTML and CSS.

Well I didn't say using Java was 'good' practice.... I think it's the most flexible though. As for 'light', let me see you do all you page layout with 11 lines of CSS

[alex_read]

I also prefer using the HTML window in visual studio.Net and handcoding placement of controls etc rather than the designer as when you switch back and forth to the designer it changes your code formatting which i hate.

I definitely agree with that one! I never used to use that in Interdev either. I do switch back & forth (you can turn the autoformatting off fromt he tools > options menu), but never drag & drop the controls due to the code being completely screwed up!

[mendhak]

Well I didn't say using Java was 'good' practice.... I think it's the most flexible though. As for 'light', let me see you do all you page layout with 11 lines of CSS

You'll have to explain what you mean when you say you're using Java for page layout...

[nemaroller]

Most clients are geared to a screen size of 1024x768. However, a fair amount of people still use 800x600. To that end, most web applications are designed using 750 pixels wide as the standard.

750 pixels allows room for scrollbars which may take up to 20-30 pixels. Additionally, some people set their window borders to take up 5 pixels.
Now, that leaves approximately 770 pixels, but most designers will sacrafice the extra 20 pixels (770-20 = 750) to make calculations easier.

The 450px height allows for browser toolbars on a 800x600 screen, and status bars on the bottom.

Hardly any commercial web site uses 1024x768. But to make the site look good at that resolution, web sites center the content on the screen, or push it far left.
http://www.cnn.com/ 800x600 - left justified content
http://www.gamespot.com/ 800x600 - centered content (NO TABLE LAYOUT AT ALL)
http://www.microsoft.com/ 800x600 - left justified content

The only time you will see 1024x768 are at personal web sites or tech-driven sites (vbforums for example).

To meet the requirements, you can use tables or divs, doesn't matter, since you will be setting a fixed width anyway. And because of that, setting percentages on table just makes the browser work harder and effectively take longer to display your page.

Using DIVs for layout is still the least hard to maintain and add content, and in the GAMESPOT example above, proves it can be done cross-browser.