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Actually, believe it or not, this is a good webpage coding practice. Very wide webpages are harder to read for a long time, because you (unconsciously) have to move your eyes more and hence more eyestrain occurs. Therefore, every website with large text content and designed with widescreen in minds should have a reasonable maximum width in milimeters/inches set in its CSSs.
Edited 2010-09-07 20:44 UTC
Agreed. There's a reason that newspapers are split into columns, rather than spreading the text all the way across the page.
I'll often reduce the width of the browser display when a page is horizontally filled with text. Even on a modestly sized widescreen I'd rather have a narrower column of text for comfortable reading.
This is one of the main reasons why I use Opera: it allows me to tile tabs side by side within the browser window, while the main browser window itself remains maximised.
It isn't terrible web page coding, it has more to do with economics.
Ultra wide resolutions are routinely ignored just like IE6 because they are such a small percentage of visitors.
http://gs.statcounter.com/#resolution-na-monthly-200908-201008
Yes I know about relative widths but that won't help fixed content like image files. Even if all images were vector files you would still have all sorts of optimization issues.
Webpages are built around 14-17 inch screens. That's just the reality of the situation and it won't be changing anytime soon. As laptops continue to be favored over desktops the situation will likely get worse. I hate browsing on ultra-wide monitors for this very reason.
I have actually found that I am more productive on a smaller monitor due to less eye strain from the reduced amount of glare. If I work all day on a 23" monitor my eyeballs feel like they sat through a dozen movies.
Edited 2010-09-08 01:28 UTC




Member since:
2007-02-22
How is the maximize button to blame for terrible webpage coding?