Today, Member Flakes has put a suggestion that it is time to widen the template of this website so it better fits today's wide screens.

I would say that most people who have bought a computer in the last four years now owns a 15 inch widescreen laptop. Those who have stuck with desktop machines will likely own a screen that is larger still. For instance, my deskop is fitted with two 23 inch screens and I have a 15 inch laptop.

However before I go ahead with this I want to be sure that as few people as possible will be adversely affected by the change.

What screen size and resolution do you use? Do you size your web browser to a particular height and width on your desktop or is it fully maximised to cover the whole screen.

I would like as many members as possible, particularly the regulars, to let me know their configurations - your answers will determine whether I make this change or not.

I think Flakes is right that now many be the time to go wider though at the same time nothing is more annoying than having to use a horizontal scrollbar.

Please let me know these details in this thread.

I have Firefox running at its default size, with just the top menu and the bookmarks toolbar showing.

I use a 17 inch screen at 1280 x 1024, and your current layout suits me fine. I have never had a horizontal scroll bar appear on this site.

As I said on the front page, long lines of text on wide pages are hard to read (which is why newspapers have the columnar format).

Just bought a 24 inch widescreen (1280 x 720) monitor because I was having trouble reading the text in the spreadsheet that is used for the books for a community group. Starting to get cataracts so floaters can make reading small text difficult. The wider screen allows more columns as well which minimises tabbing around the spreadsheet.

Wasn't particularly having problems with Vintage Radio - would just do a Ctrl + to magnify if there was a problem seeing something.

1366 x 738 landscape on my Dell Laptop,
1280 x 1024 in my two office computers, both running dual monitors
1920 x 1080 on my workshop 23" monitor above my radio bench for viewing circuit diagrams.
I make my web pages auto scalable to allow for some people who are still persevering with CRT 800x600 monitors (are there any left?

I started out in the old days building web pages 720px wide, then to 900px and now 1024px. Most people now have LCD monitors and I do not cater anymore for those in the dark ages.
I noticed that your vintage radio site table is 985px wide, is that correct? on my laptop these is still 50mm blank space either side on the web page.
At present your radio site fits perfectly on a 1024 x 768px resolution monitor.
If you are not sure of your monitor resolution use this link:
http://www.whatismyscreenresolution.com/

Let's see what others have as far as monitor resolution goes and I guess you can gauge from that!!
Peter

I have a Javascript here somewhere that would allow me to log what all visitors use though there's a few reasons why I chose not to do this. Javascript slows things down as it is a client-side scripting environment (unless the developer has employed it in a .NET server-side environment. Next, many people have it turned off in their browsers because it is very much abused by some website owners either by running malicious code or thrusting ad banners at visitors. This site does use some Javascript but it is kept to an absolute minimum to keep server resources in reserve for periods of heavier usage.

985px is the current width of the site, yep. I always use an odd number so the site sits exactly central in a browser window instead of being a pixel to the left. This width is intentional so as to display the blank bars on each side inline with widespread fixed width practice, in this case on screens set to 1024 x 768.

CRTs are still in use but they are rapidly being shown the door. They are more common in the workplace than in homes now.

I remember back to 1998 when I made my first website. It was 620px wide and text-only. That was back before the web was used to make money and when 640 x 480 monitors were most common. A basic text-only website in a browser's default font was considered the eighth wonder of the world at the time.

A lot has changed since then and two or three popular browsers at the time are no longer made, probably the most noteable being Netscape Navigator.

I'll add that I think GTC has a point with the width of a website's columns. Text is much easier to read when placed in well divided columns.

One of the long-standing bugbears with the HTML formatting language is that columns are not supported without the use of CSS or tables. This makes using columns to format the discussion forums nigh on impossible.

One way to get extra width whilst keeping the site easy to read, navigate and manage is inserting a third site column, most likely to the left, however I do not have any content to place there.

One thing is for sure Brad, and I think I can speak for everyone here, we really appreciate to work you do in giving us this forum.
Keep up the good work mate.
Peter

No worries at all. I just hope I do a better job with the masthead image next time 'round.

I'm using a fairly old 15" LCD with 1024 X 768 resolution.
The current page fits exactly. Keep up the good work,
Regards
Gandhn

Looks like I opened up a can of worms.

My thoughts are
If you do widen it up then the Posts could take up to the edge of the current the member bar and links on the right. Then the page could be shifted by this much. it wouldn’t be much but extra in size.

This would then allow (Page real estate anyway) for larger pictures to eventually be imbedded into members posts if you do decide to allow that.

Just thoughts.

Dan (Flakes)

Normal res of my monitors (Work and Home) 1920 x 1200

One thing that may be possible, athough I won't promise that it is practical, is to create a choice of two width settings, switchable from members' control panels.

One choice being the current width and the other about 1890px. If this did happen there would still be a restriction of 655px on forum photos though, due to the current witdth still being available.

PC at home has large new screen. Laptop is 15inch. Running Firefox.
On Laptop, 1680 x 1050 resolution, I have two large borders of 'nothing' down both sides .....