UNDERSTANDING VARIABLES IN SETTINGS

EXAMPLES: BROWSER, SCREEN SIZE, RESOLUTION, AND COLOR

If you're just starting with website construction, you should not struggle with the many variables that affect the way your viewer sees your webpages; however, you should know that these variables exist. Here are some examples.

Browser
Have you ever noticed an announcement on a website like this: "Best viewed in Netscape Navigator" or ". . . Microsoft Internet Explorer"? Netscape and Microsoft have competing products. What looks okay in one browser may look awful in another. This website is created in a Microsoft product; unfortunately, Netscape products don't display certain features the same way.  And the AOL browser has another set of display rules.  Examples: Some image maps work fine in Netscape but don't even display in IE; the coding for the audio clips is totally different for different browsers.  Some animated gifs won't show up with AOL.  Fortunately, there are workarounds for these problems; unfortunately, to implement these, the developer must know a great deal about HTML.

 
Screen size
You have created a page on a 19-inch monitor and the user has a 14-inch monitor. If you have placed objects and text so they look good on your screen, will your user see the same thing? Will her printouts look like your printouts? (Think hard about that one.)

 
Resolution
Monitors can be set for resolutions of 800 x 600, and on up, like to 1220 x 1228. If I set my resolution at 1152 x 864 and design a page to be viewed on a single screen with no scrolling, what will the page look like to a viewer whose monitor resolution is set for 800 x 600? Recommendation: Look at your most important pages (like your homepage) in the "standard" 800 x 600 and on different monitor sizes, then decide your "best fit." For my personal viewing, I have settled on 1024 X 768, but I design my pages for 800 x 600.  FrontPage has a handy command in File menu:  Preview in different browsers at different resolutions; however, this feature is NOT a complete substitute for seeing it on a real setup.
 
Printouts
If you post information that will be printed out, you should always check the print preview for every page to see if all of the material will be visible.  If not, you can sometimes solve this problem by placing all your information inside a table that is set to less that 100% of the browser's window.
 
Color
Do you know if your computer is set for true color (32-bit), high color (16-bit), 256 colors, or 16 colors? What if your user's color setting is different from yours? The colors you see in a graphic may be different from the colors some of your users will see.  You will sometimes find it helpful to use a color chart--but that's no guarantee.