A layout Question - fixed or fluid?

I'm definitely a fluid man. Being fluid doesn't mean that fancy graphics etc can't be used. For an example look at www.unreal.ie - it's a fluid site with a full page banner at the top. This is achieved by have 3 parts to the banner - the middle part resizes to fit to screen while the other parts of the banner stay absolute sizes. Works quite well I think.

I use Firefox here - and I have my bookmarks on the left side of the screen. They're not always open but when they are they don't necessarily use up the right amount of space to mean that a fixed site isn't lost at the edges.

Fluid might be a bit of a pain for people with small monitors though.

meh! Does anyone use anything less than 17" CRT nowadays? 15" flatscreen are standard with new pcs and they have the same visible area as a 17" CRT.

It's down to resolution not screensize and 1024*768 is the optimum rez any site should cater for - that's the proper rez for 15" LCD. People with higher rez (me ) will have no probs with sites designed for that.

I'm definitely a fluid man. Being fluid doesn't mean that fancy graphics etc can't be used. For an example look at www.unreal.ie - it's a fluid site with a full page banner at the top. This is achieved by have 3 parts to the banner - the middle part resizes to fit to screen while the other parts of the banner stay absolute sizes. Works quite well I think.

I use Firefox here - and I have my bookmarks on the left side of the screen. They're not always open but when they are they don't necessarily use up the right amount of space to mean that a fixed site isn't lost at the edges.

Ah yes, an excellent example of a shinny fluid layout (they are quite few and far between actually).

I'm getting a general conscensus that fluid is preffered so far.

Guys you really cannot forget about the visitors to this site who may not be as technically aware as a lot of the people here. Some people believe it or not still have old pc's with resolutions set to a width of 800...Yes a lot of us have broadband and large monitors but a lot of visitors may not. We should aim for the lowest common denominator

But doesn't fluid work well with both?

Guys you really cannot forget about the visitors to this site who may not be as technically aware as a lot of the people here. Some people believe it or not still have old pc's with resolutions set to a width of 800...Yes a lot of us have broadband and large monitors but a lot of visitors may not. We should aim for the lowest common denominator

But a fluid site will work ok with 800*600 even one designed with 1024*768 in mind. The other side of your argument is why should people have wasted real estate because of a minority with old technology?

17"CRT / 15"LCD is not a large monitor size. It's bog-standard and has been for at least 4 years. I haven't seen a smaller monitor in a long long time. A large monitor now would be 21"LCD. Even my nice (5 year old) 19" CRT is not especially big by todays standards. Have a look on boards.ie - people are giving away 17" CRTs free becuase they're obsolete.