Posted by Andy Dingley on 09/24/07 11:40

On 23 Sep, 08:23, zacar...@gmail.com wrote:
> The site layout is split in three parts: 'top', 'middle' and 'bottom'.
> all three parts are 100% width, 'top' and 'bottom' are x pixels high
> and middle hight is to fill the rest of the page. Standard scrolling
> is disabled and 'middle' is set to (css) 'overflow:auto'.

"Letterbox" scrolling usually looks ugly. You've limited the effective
window height for reading in and you've swapped the scrolling control
from the window's frame to some embedded frame. Both of these are a
bad idea usability-wise.

If you want "persistent branding", then I'd set the footer to
position:fixed down at the bottom, make it a bit transparent, and then
leave the scrolling of the header and main content to the window frame
itself.

I don't believe you need to have the navigation bar permanently
available like this. Users know where to find it and how to get there
by scrolling upwards. Is your content really so bad that you need to
provide an easy escape route from it? 8-) If it's a bloggish site
then you might well want a floating fixed toolbar for "task" buttons,
but that's not the same as a hefty great 100% width header.

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