We've got a lot of links/content... and therefore it seems an absolute necessity that we have a three column web site...

thing is.. if we optimize our site for 800 x 600 monitors... we won't have a lot of room at all for our merchandise...

right now our site measures at width of 875.. meaning only the 1024 x 768 resolutions will get our entire site. i've also noticed that in 800 x 600 site.... our right-hand side shopping cart is cut out !

are we really going to loose out on a lot of customers? we can't really afford to loose one.. our biggest competitor has their site optimized for the same dimensions as us.. but the little lightbulb in my head rings 'what if we could get all the people that are ticked off trying to navigate their site... to use ours?'


ugh!




help !

I'd be interested to know what other merchants are doing as well. Our site measures 875 and the right column is cut off. However, like kristen I can't afford the space by cutting it down. There has to be a way to dynamically checking the users resolution then adjusting the layout...

I checked Analytics for my wholesale site and 51% of the visitors had screen resolution of 1024 and greated. To make my site fit most of the visitors i have made my right column appear in a way that if some one comes with 800 resolution then he/she will not miss anything. I am planning on doing more fine tuning on the right column to make it more attractive. Take a look at right column on my wholesale site. i thought this is the best way to serve most of my customers.
Comments are welcome.

My site dispalys well in both 800 X 600 and 1024 X 768 resolutions. Here is what I used for my columns....

Main Table Size - 99%
Left Column Table Size - 160 px
Right Column Table Size - 158 px
Center Column Table Size - 99%

Hope it helps.

Thank you both for your replies.

The problem I have with creating a variable-width main table is my page header. I haven't come up with a way to shrink the header to fit an 800x600 display or expand it to accomodate a 1024x768 resolution. I've tried setting the image as the table background (the image being 850x74), but when someone with a 1024 resolution views it, the graphic repeats and looks terrible.

ebeadstore, I like the idea of what you did (and it looks cool), but the content in my right column is important for 800px users to see (the cart is over there, for one).

crashingflwrgrl, you have a graphic in your header but when I view the site at 800x600 it shrinks to accomodate the smaller size. how you do dat?

My top banner is split into 2 images...


banner_001.gif
banner_02.gif


This is the top of page code:


Results in a nice clean banner where the truck is on the left and the text on the right. It's the center area that stretches/shrinks depending on the resolution you're viewing it in.

I know how to make web sites fit any browser... the problem is we're using a gallery-style display for our merchandise.. and i'd rather not have three images swimming in the middle of the site - i think it will be really frustrating for some people who'd like to see more images in that space..

also - our header uses flash.. and is a fixed size... think i'm gonna go with keeping the items in the left hand side as well as the right

thanks for the help everyone.....

Thanks for the info crashingflwrgrl. I may have to consider re-designing the banner.

Just a note - I like the site and colors you choose. Great design!!

So is there a way to make your site fit any screen resolution?

Are there statistics on what % of people view in 800 vs 1024, etc?

My template doesn't seem to move much no matter what pixel or % settings I use for the main table size or left and right table sizes, and I designed it to fit in the resolution I use, 1280x1024, not realizing this may be a factor. When I go down in resolution of course, even to 1280, it cuts off the left side menu, and if I go down further I get the bar thingy to move the screen from side to side.

I've noticed pretty much all the custome sites designed by MC are squeezed down to the center to fit 800...