Seems like even my old 15" laptop supports it at this point.. Is anyone out there designing 1200 px wide yet?

Originally Posted by Boar

Seems like even my old 15" laptop supports it at this point.. Is anyone out there designing 1200 px wide yet?

Not me. Desktop monitors are getting larger and larger, I know. But, the mobile community computers are getting smaller and smaller.

Not me either. According to GA, over a third of my visitors would require horizontal scrolling if I did.

Too many people still out there using old monitors, even a few on 800, I use my monitor on 1024 just to know how the average person see's my sites.

Not yet, I think it'll be a few more years before everyone has wide-screen, horizontal scroll bars are horrible ...

S

Not yet. i do 1000px max

Personally I do prefer 960px or maximum 990px. No, I do not use 960gs

It really depends on what you need or... what your client wants

Thanks, sounds like a consensus.

I wouldn't do it for e-commerce or anything with a broad visitor base; but I'm tempted to do it for my higher end clients who's visitors are all rich and should have top of the line computers...

But good point about the mobile issues too.

Originally Posted by Boar

Thanks, sounds like a consensus.

I wouldn't do it for e-commerce or anything with a broad visitor base; but I'm tempted to do it for my higher end clients who's visitors are all rich and should have top of the line computers...

But good point about the mobile issues too.

just because they're rich doesnt mean that they are tech savvy, sure it means they could afford a huge monitor doesnt necessarily mean they own one.

it is always best to go on a case by case basis and perhaps if you have a large mobile community it would be better to create a separate site for them.

We always prefer 960px, but sometimes client wants fixed width then we do deal accordingly

I wouldn't chance it to be honest. I usually design at around 900px-1000px

1200px seems like a bad idea. Specially because a lot of people still use 1024. Even more so now with the number of netbooks out on the market.

Originally Posted by stevecane

Not yet, I think it'll be a few more years before everyone has wide-screen, horizontal scroll bars are horrible ...

S

I think the more realistic answer is that we'll probably NEVER see the 1024 resolution go away, at least not for many more than a few years, maybe not even in our lifetimes.

Take netbooks, for example. They are very popular, and all of them have a 1024 wide monitor on them. They are probably only going to get more popular.

Tablet devices like the iPad are probably going to become more common than notebooks, and they all have 1024 wide monitors. In fact the iPad is exactly 1024 x 768.

The 1024 standard is going to be a very common one for a long, long time. If you want to design fixed width sites that work on a variety of computing devices, I suggest you just forget about 1200px windows, permanently.

Yep, I designed my first 1200px website. I think 960px wide website are getting old, almost everyone has a wide-screen monitor or a laptop with high resolution. Statistics say more than 75% of the computers have a screen resolution higher than 1024x768px.
For more information, just take a look at 1200px Grid System.

personally I don't see the point in this. I've yet to see a site that needs that much width. 960px is ample for today's internet needs. In the future, who knows? But right now there isn't anything you can't do on 960px.

My iMac has a screen width of 2400px or thereabouts. Just because the size is there, doesn't mean it should be used. It would be ridiculous to have a site that large. Honestly, can you image reading text over that width? Your eye wouldn't be able to cope at all. It's bad enough with text over 960px.

Why make a big deal over 240px?
I agree that it would be ridiculous to show text over the whole width, but if you use columns, it will be a usefull space.
CSS3 will offer multicolumn text.

also monitor width does not necessarily = browser width

Originally Posted by igneous

Why make a big deal over 240px?
I agree that it would be ridiculous to show text over the whole width, but if you use columns, it will be a usefull space.
CSS3 will offer multicolumn text.

from experience. There's simply no need for that extra space. why bother to fill the screen? it's just not necessary and it's uncomfortable for the user to read.

You can make multi-column text easily enough now, but on-screen reading is bad enough without having to navigate your eye across multiple columns.

The web has evolved to be vertical in nature for a reason.

I will say, since no one else has, that it is possible to do a max width 1200px with percentages that degrades nicely on lower widths, but it takes some effort depending on your layout.

The general rule I have followed is consider all of your target market, and so far that's for the most part been a 1000px max width, and generally for the reasons others have already stated.

tim

the thing is, even for a fluid 3 column design, it would make the central column too wide to be nicely legible. The wider width of the main content area, the harder it is to read.

Maybe it could be useful for some kind of portal site... but who uses portals these days?