Posted by mbstevens on 08/19/06 12:41

On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 08:48:08 +0100, Deryck wrote:

> Why is it OK to fixed the width (and position) of 2 columns but not 3?

If the main center column is fluid, the page as a
whole can still expand and contract.

> The problems illustrated in your examples will hold true when using a
> 3-column-with-2-fixed solution if the screen is small/large enough.
>
> I have a 1900 pixel wide screen. Yes a central column that is 400px wide
> results in unused (I wouldn't say wasted exactly) space BUT a 400px
> column of text can be easier to read quickly than one 1500px wide (I
> believe that's one of the reasons why newspapers use multi column output).

I would imagine that anyone who ran their browser so wide would also have
their text size set large enough to negate this problem. Otherwise they
would have dead space in their browser displacing real estate on their
desktop on almost every page they visited.

>
> I'm not sure what either solution would look like on my Nokia 6630 with
> its 176px wide screen.

Web standards layout works on hand held computers better than tables.
It depends on the browser that the device is using, but columns are
can be allowed to appear one above the other instead of side by side,
making it unnecessary to do horizontal scrolling.

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