hi, what is the recommended width for a pageholder/container? The main browsers I am trying to support are firefox, opera, and ie. i see alot of site that have the parent container at around 750px. I am wondering what is the largest size that won't need to use the horizontal scroll bar?

It all just depends on what minimum resolution you think your visitors will have. The reason you see a lot of page containers set to 750px or similar is because that's a safe size for 800x600 resolution, which is still common enough to design for.

If you knew that all of your visitors were using at least 1024x768 then you could make the width of your page container larger. There's no real one size fits all width.

We were discussing the issue recently at this thread on Design Standards

Yeah I usually make sure my layout width is no larger than 720-750 ish. I figure most of my visitors are using 800x600 and up. Like Van said, there is not one size fits all. You just have to make it as accesible to as many as possible. When in doubt, go a little smaller in my opinion. I would rather sacrifice a little size than have someone trying to scroll over to see my website. I can't stand doing that and I wouldn't want my visitors to.

Kelly somewhere along the way I decided on 760px for an 800px width design. I'm not really sure why I ended up with 760px though. I've seen people going as high as 780px though I like to play it a little safer.

I try to stay away from fixed width layouts... Liquid layouts let the user decide

Originally Posted by vangogh

Kelly somewhere along the way I decided on 760px for an 800px width design. I'm not really sure why I ended up with 760px though. I've seen people going as high as 780px though I like to play it a little safer.

Me too!

Originally Posted by Minaki

I try to stay away from fixed width layouts... Liquid layouts let the user decide

That is a great way to do it Minaki.... I just usually don't want to compromise on my header image. I am graphic's artist first and am real paticular about my graphics... (I am weird I know this) Liquid layouts are a great universal way to go, that is true.

I agree Minaki. I think liquid layouts are a better approach. I wish I could code sites that way more often, but they do take a little longer and my clients aren't always willing to pay for the extra time involved.

I know some people aren't crazy about a fully liquid layout since they can leave a lot of empty space at high resoutions. I've been thinking a semi-liquid approach might work well as a compromise. Something where the site is liguid between a range of resolutions like 800x600 up to 1600x1200 and for larger resolutions the site would appear as a fixed 1600x1200 layout. Haven't had a chance to try it yet, but thinking I will if and when I ever get around to redesigning my own site.

I don't think it really matters about higher resolutions with fluid layouts,

The people who are using resolutions above 1024w are not always using the browser set to full screen.
The majority of high res users are going to be designers, gamers etc.
Designers (for the most part) are already aware of issues like this, so will simply shrink the browser window to suit.

If your design requires a max width constraint then use a max-width:nnnnpx on a parent container inside the body. Of course this won't work in IE but with a little help from somewhere [ max-width for Interent Explorer ] it can be done.

That's true Chris. And I agree with using max-width on things. I've heard some people complain about the extra space which is what got me thinking about the semi-liquid idea. I don't know there is a perfect design option or ever will be. I'm all for liquid layouts as the best approach.

I know I'm one of the high res people and I never surf with the browser maximized. I'm usually about 1600x1200.

I think using fixed or fluid very much depends on the content...