What should be the ideal website width?

Guys

I am planning to develop a new websie in Frontpage. The website is related to online business opportunities. I just want to know what should be the ideal website width. Earlier I have website http://www.ebooksparadize.com having width of 800.

Guide me what is resolution that maximum users use or what should be the width of my Frontpage AdSense enabled website?


GCS

 

Thats fine
I advise something around 900
Just dont get too close to 1000 or it goes out of range for certain people.

 

I voted for 974px

 

I started a thread not too long ago, although its regarding photoshop its still related to your question, quite a few answers there that may help you decide.

Designing website in photoshop, what size layout?

 

It should still look good in 1024x768, since loads of people still use this resolution. Horizontal scrollbars are no option.

 

Lol, the age old question there are many different solutions to this problem depending on your personal preferences.

You could use % instead of px (or other measurement) when using percent it basically means that width %70 will display your site in %70 of the browser width no matter what screen resolution they are using.

If you are just looking for the best quality and would prefer not to use percentage i would recommend 800px width as its the most common browser width used, and still retains its quality in higher resolutions.

Hope this helped.

-Z-

 

I say 900, some people may have very small monitors

 

I have one question here. For example I development my site according to resolution of 1024 using 80% of width and created top menu that don't wrap and keeps in single line.

Then if someone visits my site having resolution of 800 then it means my top menu will wrap because now 80% of screen width is less than I planned. This way every thing will wrap to next line if planned width is higher then visitors shorter width.

What is solution of this?

GCS

 

I used 960 px, as All modern monitors support at least 1024 × 768 pixel resolution. 960 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 20, 24, 30, 32, 40, 48, 60, 64, 80, 96, 120, 160, 192, 240, 320 and 480. This makes it a highly flexible base number to work with.

Take a look at http://960.gs

 

What is divisible by .......?

GCS

 

resolution Width and Hight
640x480 -> 615x314
800x600 -> 775x434
1024x768 -> 999x602

Almost no one is using 800X600 and you can ignore that

 

I changed my laptop resolution to 800x600 and I visited my own old site www.ebooksparadize.com, now that is fit to complete screen, no space left on both site.

Then I visited www.talkgold.com/forum and I have to scroll left and right (with 800 resultion). TalkGold's width is more than 800 and every visitor with 800 resolution will face same problem.

Then I checked this forum DigitalPoint. By 800 resolution this forum fits to width with no space on left and right and no need of scrolling. It means width of this forum is 800. At this resolution "Google" folder description is going on next line at word "about" means "THE search engine. This is for discussion about" is in one line. Then I changed back my laptop resolution to 1280 x 800 and now Google folder description in one line is "THE search engine. This is for discussion about Google as a company, not for discussion of individual sites (SEO, PageRank for a"

Still confused what to set as standard resolution

GCS

 

I would suggest 960px. Most users have at least a 1024x768 resolution, and the average resolution is getting larger as time goes by.

 

960px is the standard width. Check out 960.gs for the grid system, its helpful during coding

 

I always use between 900-1000 depending on how busy I want the page to be. If it's a blog, I go a little smaller, since I don't need all that extra sidebar space. I would advice against % width as you lose a lot of design control.

 

Heh, this question seems to always be around.
I personally am sick of designing for 800x600 resolution people (although i personally know people who still use it). I am also sick of designing for browser compatibility with IE7, IE6 (but i still do it cause I'm too damn perfectionist ).
But truth be told, you can't drive a junk car and pretend for it to act like a Ferrari let's say. So those who insist to stick with the "Ice Age" resolutions and browsers deserve their fate. Keep coding for them and they will never progress to a better thing, thus forcing you to keep wondering what size, what hacks, what, what...you should use.

So, to answer your question, go for at least 900px width. For those with higher than 1024 resolutions, your 800px (or less) design will be too small, and hell, they are many more than the 800px users.
You can also use fluid layouts, but only if your theme is simple and clean and you dont want certain elements to stay in certain places and so on.

 

As someone mentioned before, definitely go with 960

 

Guys

After inputs of different people I will go with 960px

Thank you everybody for helping.


GCS

 

I would go with 400 pixels just in case someone is using an Amiga.

 

Then I should publish my website content in newspaper so everyone may read it without problem.

GCS