Screen resolution and web page problem
Discussion
Hi geniuses,
Just had a PC upgraded and now have a resolution problem. When the PC came back, the screen resolution was set to 1024 X 768. This made the screen icons very small and the system tray icons were tiny. I also noticed my home page was narrower than it should be with 2 white clear spaces down each side, about 2" wide.
It also affected the Word page settings.
I changed the screen res to 800 X 600 ( right over on the left, the lowest setting on the slider, ( Control Panel - Display properties - Screen resolution) and then the icons were bigger than they had been prior to the upgrade and the home page filled the screen as it should. Word display was also as it should be.
The setting it came back with was already just one click from the lowest setting on the left of the slider. ( 1024 X 768)
All seemed workable with this bottom res setting until I tried to download Windows Messenger. I found that the bottom part of the page was missing and I could not see the "download now" buttons. There was no scroll bar at the side of the screen as is usual when the page is too long for the screen.
In order to see the buttons I had to change the res back to 1024 X 768 and then the whole page appeared as it should , albeit with small icons back again.
Oddly, my cousin has her slider way over on the right of the setting, the other end to where mine was and this also shows 1024 X 768.
Anyone know how to get the whole page to display on the screen as it should without losing my hompage width and affecting the display in Word?
Many thanks.
Just had a PC upgraded and now have a resolution problem. When the PC came back, the screen resolution was set to 1024 X 768. This made the screen icons very small and the system tray icons were tiny. I also noticed my home page was narrower than it should be with 2 white clear spaces down each side, about 2" wide.
It also affected the Word page settings.
I changed the screen res to 800 X 600 ( right over on the left, the lowest setting on the slider, ( Control Panel - Display properties - Screen resolution) and then the icons were bigger than they had been prior to the upgrade and the home page filled the screen as it should. Word display was also as it should be.
The setting it came back with was already just one click from the lowest setting on the left of the slider. ( 1024 X 768)
All seemed workable with this bottom res setting until I tried to download Windows Messenger. I found that the bottom part of the page was missing and I could not see the "download now" buttons. There was no scroll bar at the side of the screen as is usual when the page is too long for the screen.
In order to see the buttons I had to change the res back to 1024 X 768 and then the whole page appeared as it should , albeit with small icons back again.
Oddly, my cousin has her slider way over on the right of the setting, the other end to where mine was and this also shows 1024 X 768.
Anyone know how to get the whole page to display on the screen as it should without losing my hompage width and affecting the display in Word?
Many thanks.
Indeed - 800x600 is quite old hat and many (lazy) software designers tend to use 1024x768 as a minimum these days.
The "errors" you point out are:
1. Screen icons "too" small - In the display properties dialog, click on the "Effects" tab. If there's a "use large icons" option, select it.
2. Home page 'narrow' - It appears that whatever you're using as your home page is a fixed width rather than sizeable. Either re-code it to resize (if its yours) or if it bothers you that much, just re-size the browser window until the whitespace goes away...
3. Word page settings 'affected' - You don't explain in what way you don't like the look of the pages at 1024x768. Note that there is a zoom control in Word, so you can zoom in to see the pages filling the screen if that's what you want.
4. Messenger buttons missing - See above; they're just off the bottom of the screen. Run it at 1024x768 and you'll be fine.
5. Cousin's PC showing different options - Different video card, driver and/or screen to you, therefore different settings available.
The "errors" you point out are:
1. Screen icons "too" small - In the display properties dialog, click on the "Effects" tab. If there's a "use large icons" option, select it.
2. Home page 'narrow' - It appears that whatever you're using as your home page is a fixed width rather than sizeable. Either re-code it to resize (if its yours) or if it bothers you that much, just re-size the browser window until the whitespace goes away...
3. Word page settings 'affected' - You don't explain in what way you don't like the look of the pages at 1024x768. Note that there is a zoom control in Word, so you can zoom in to see the pages filling the screen if that's what you want.
4. Messenger buttons missing - See above; they're just off the bottom of the screen. Run it at 1024x768 and you'll be fine.
5. Cousin's PC showing different options - Different video card, driver and/or screen to you, therefore different settings available.
Whilst it may seem like a perfectly sensible "fix" to simply run at 1024x768 and forget that resolutions such as 800x600 ever existed, perhaps we should consider the possibility that Tafia is one of those people who actually *shudder* prefer lower resolutions?
As a long-term member of the 1600x1200 users club I've never quite understood the desire to fit less rather than more onto the screen, but I'm well aware that many people don't share my fondness for small text/icons and masses of screen real-estate...
If you're referring to the browser window here, then it's possible it wasn't maximised in which case it would attempt to open itself at the same size it'd been at when you had the screen set to 1024x768. If so then most likely the lower part of the window was simply being drawn off the bottom of the shorter 800x600 screen, hence the lack of a vertical scrollbar - the browser doesn't care if part of its window is off the edge of the screen... To rectify this (apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs here!), drag the browser window up to the top of the screen, then move the mouse over the top edge of the window until the double-headed arrow pointer appears. Hold down the left mouse button and drag the top of the window down the screen - about halfway should be enough. Release the mouse button and then drag the entire window up the screen again - fingers crossed you should at some point be able to see the bottom edge of the window appear onscreen. Now drag the top edge of the window upwards to size the window as you prefer. Any webpage which is now too tall to fit within the visible window should then see the browser display scrollbars as expected...
As a long-term member of the 1600x1200 users club I've never quite understood the desire to fit less rather than more onto the screen, but I'm well aware that many people don't share my fondness for small text/icons and masses of screen real-estate...
Tafia said:
All seemed workable with this bottom res setting until I tried to download Windows Messenger. I found that the bottom part of the page was missing and I could not see the "download now" buttons. There was no scroll bar at the side of the screen as is usual when the page is too long for the screen.
If you're referring to the browser window here, then it's possible it wasn't maximised in which case it would attempt to open itself at the same size it'd been at when you had the screen set to 1024x768. If so then most likely the lower part of the window was simply being drawn off the bottom of the shorter 800x600 screen, hence the lack of a vertical scrollbar - the browser doesn't care if part of its window is off the edge of the screen... To rectify this (apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs here!), drag the browser window up to the top of the screen, then move the mouse over the top edge of the window until the double-headed arrow pointer appears. Hold down the left mouse button and drag the top of the window down the screen - about halfway should be enough. Release the mouse button and then drag the entire window up the screen again - fingers crossed you should at some point be able to see the bottom edge of the window appear onscreen. Now drag the top edge of the window upwards to size the window as you prefer. Any webpage which is now too tall to fit within the visible window should then see the browser display scrollbars as expected...
twister said:
Whilst it may seem like a perfectly sensible "fix" to simply run at 1024x768 and forget that resolutions such as 800x600 ever existed, perhaps we should consider the possibility that Tafia is one of those people who actually *shudder* prefer lower resolutions?
As a long-term member of the 1600x1200 users club I've never quite understood the desire to fit less rather than more onto the screen, but I'm well aware that many people don't share my fondness for small text/icons and masses of screen real-estate...
I have 1920x1200 on my notebook with the same again on my 24" TFT secondary display. As a long-term member of the 1600x1200 users club I've never quite understood the desire to fit less rather than more onto the screen, but I'm well aware that many people don't share my fondness for small text/icons and masses of screen real-estate...
Dropping down to 1024x768 HURTS!victormeldrew said:
I have 1920x1200 on my notebook with the same again on my 24" TFT secondary display. Dropping down to 1024x768 HURTS!
Dropping down to 1024x768 HURTS!1920x1200 is the minimum I can suffer at home now.
Browser stats on 800x600 have dropped off hugely in the last couple of years - wouldn't expect many new sites/applications to support it given the cost:benefit model around it now. If the text is too small at 1024x768, you can always switch to large fonts (admittedly, this has its own issues), or a new/second hand monitor that supports higher resolutions is fairly cheap (OK, so if you've not got/don't want to spend the money, this doesn't help).
J_S_G said:
Browser stats on 800x600 have dropped off hugely in the last couple of years
I wonder if the stats for 640x480 and lower are starting to increase, given the growing popularity of mobile web access? Maybe it'll soon be time for site designers to start re-learning the art of small-screen/resolution independent layout...
aldi said:
Have you got low vision or it it just a comfort thing? If the former the solutions might be different to the latter.
Vision is fine............. with glasses of course. My previous ( unrefurbed) PC was fine with this monitor and I guess I am used to the bigger icons and to the Wanadoo ( now Orange) home page filling the screen.
The Orange page header does fill the screen side to side but the web page below it is narrow when res is set to 1024 X 768.
Thanks to all for your valuable help. Now I will try to put it into effect.
Edited by Tafia on Tuesday 11th July 10:39
Edited by Tafia on Tuesday 11th July 10:40
victormeldrew said:
twister said:
Whilst it may seem like a perfectly sensible "fix" to simply run at 1024x768 and forget that resolutions such as 800x600 ever existed, perhaps we should consider the possibility that Tafia is one of those people who actually *shudder* prefer lower resolutions?
As a long-term member of the 1600x1200 users club I've never quite understood the desire to fit less rather than more onto the screen, but I'm well aware that many people don't share my fondness for small text/icons and masses of screen real-estate...
I have 1920x1200 on my notebook with the same again on my 24" TFT secondary display. As a long-term member of the 1600x1200 users club I've never quite understood the desire to fit less rather than more onto the screen, but I'm well aware that many people don't share my fondness for small text/icons and masses of screen real-estate...
Dropping down to 1024x768 HURTS!Jeepers, you guys must be able to read sauce bottle labels from space!
twister said:
Whilst it may seem like a perfectly sensible "fix" to simply run at 1024x768 and forget that resolutions such as 800x600 ever existed, perhaps we should consider the possibility that Tafia is one of those people who actually *shudder* prefer lower resolutions?
As a long-term member of the 1600x1200 users club I've never quite understood the desire to fit less rather than more onto the screen, but I'm well aware that many people don't share my fondness for small text/icons and masses of screen real-estate...
If you're referring to the browser window here, then it's possible it wasn't maximised in which case it would attempt to open itself at the same size it'd been at when you had the screen set to 1024x768. If so then most likely the lower part of the window was simply being drawn off the bottom of the shorter 800x600 screen, hence the lack of a vertical scrollbar - the browser doesn't care if part of its window is off the edge of the screen... To rectify this (apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs here!), drag the browser window up to the top of the screen, then move the mouse over the top edge of the window until the double-headed arrow pointer appears. Hold down the left mouse button and drag the top of the window down the screen - about halfway should be enough. Release the mouse button and then drag the entire window up the screen again - fingers crossed you should at some point be able to see the bottom edge of the window appear onscreen. Now drag the top edge of the window upwards to size the window as you prefer. Any webpage which is now too tall to fit within the visible window should then see the browser display scrollbars as expected...
As a long-term member of the 1600x1200 users club I've never quite understood the desire to fit less rather than more onto the screen, but I'm well aware that many people don't share my fondness for small text/icons and masses of screen real-estate...
Tafia said:
All seemed workable with this bottom res setting until I tried to download Windows Messenger. I found that the bottom part of the page was missing and I could not see the "download now" buttons. There was no scroll bar at the side of the screen as is usual when the page is too long for the screen.
If you're referring to the browser window here, then it's possible it wasn't maximised in which case it would attempt to open itself at the same size it'd been at when you had the screen set to 1024x768. If so then most likely the lower part of the window was simply being drawn off the bottom of the shorter 800x600 screen, hence the lack of a vertical scrollbar - the browser doesn't care if part of its window is off the edge of the screen... To rectify this (apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs here!), drag the browser window up to the top of the screen, then move the mouse over the top edge of the window until the double-headed arrow pointer appears. Hold down the left mouse button and drag the top of the window down the screen - about halfway should be enough. Release the mouse button and then drag the entire window up the screen again - fingers crossed you should at some point be able to see the bottom edge of the window appear onscreen. Now drag the top edge of the window upwards to size the window as you prefer. Any webpage which is now too tall to fit within the visible window should then see the browser display scrollbars as expected...
This sounds useful Twister. I am PC dumbkopf, as you may have realised.
If you are having a problem with the window retaining settings from when you ran at 1024x768 all you have to do is double click on the window title bar. This will maximise the window to fill the available space and the scroll bar should appear. (Sucking eggs time - the title bar of this window starts "PH: Screen resolution)
By default windows runs at a logical resolution of 96dpi (dots per inch). A 15" CRT monitor set to 1024x768 is probably displaying at close to an actual 96dpi (800x600 about 75dpi).
If you have been used to 800x600 things will look small because more can be displayed on the physical screen. I would recommend you persevere with 1024x768 if you can, unless you upgrade your monitor to something larger.
Tafia said:
flossythepig said:
Before we all get to bogged down in detail the important questions are:
1. What type of display are you using (CRT - traditional, Flat Panel)?
2. What size is the display?
CRT and 15" actual screen size1. What type of display are you using (CRT - traditional, Flat Panel)?
2. What size is the display?
By default windows runs at a logical resolution of 96dpi (dots per inch). A 15" CRT monitor set to 1024x768 is probably displaying at close to an actual 96dpi (800x600 about 75dpi).
If you have been used to 800x600 things will look small because more can be displayed on the physical screen. I would recommend you persevere with 1024x768 if you can, unless you upgrade your monitor to something larger.
Edited by flossythepig on Tuesday 11th July 13:27
flossythepig said:
If you are having a problem with the window retaining settings from when you ran at 1024x768 all you have to do is double click on the window title bar. This will maximise the window to fill the available space and the scroll bar should appear.
This is easier than the manual resizing method I described, but it has one flaw-it doesn't change the non-maximised position/size settings, so if at some later date you then double-click the title bar again the window jumps straight back to where it was when it was causing trouble in the first place...
Mind you, having just tried to refresh my memory as to how poorly Windows handles window positioning/sizing during resolution changes, I notice that XP seems to be much better behaved than earlier versions, so maybe this isn't that big an issue depending on which version of Windows Tafia is using.
twister said:
J_S_G said:
Browser stats on 800x600 have dropped off hugely in the last couple of years
I wonder if the stats for 640x480 and lower are starting to increase, given the growing popularity of mobile web access? Maybe it'll soon be time for site designers to start re-learning the art of small-screen/resolution independent layout...
Yes and no. The stats for lower-end resolutions WILL increase, but font-sizes on those resolutions, etc. is likely to be different (amongst many other things). I don't think there's any "re-learning" to do as such - focussing on the semantic Web is where it's at... if you look at Opera's small-screen-rendering (Shift-F11 from memory in the desktop version), you'll see that it treats things very differently. Tables aren't rendered (horizontally) as such. CSS definitions such as "display: none" are ignored, and numerous other things. It's basically acting as a styled screen-reader. Which is great. If everyone builds their sites properly, the device should be able to make the content appropriate, with the brand being applied on a desktop/equivalent. If multiple brands are really required, then multiple CSS definitions will take care of that.
There's a great example of this with www.egg.com. The homepage doesn't work in any non-graphical, non-desktop browsers. Once you log in and hit the new semantic-web stuff (part of a large-scale migration & rewrite that's underway), it works perfectly even on my bog-standard Nokia mobile phone - has extra links there to skip past the menu (along with extra contextual info for small-screen/accessibility). All with only one stylesheet and no browser detection - it just describes the content VERY accurately in XHTML. That was one of my key drivers when re-architecting their web platform.
flossythepig said:
If you are having a problem with the window retaining settings from when you ran at 1024x768 all you have to do is double click on the window title bar. This will maximise the window to fill the available space and the scroll bar should appear. (Sucking eggs time - the title bar of this window starts "PH: Screen resolution)
By default windows runs at a logical resolution of 96dpi (dots per inch). A 15" CRT monitor set to 1024x768 is probably displaying at close to an actual 96dpi (800x600 about 75dpi).
If you have been used to 800x600 things will look small because more can be displayed on the physical screen. I would recommend you persevere with 1024x768 if you can, unless you upgrade your monitor to something larger.
Tafia said:
flossythepig said:
Before we all get to bogged down in detail the important questions are:
1. What type of display are you using (CRT - traditional, Flat Panel)?
2. What size is the display?
CRT and 15" actual screen size1. What type of display are you using (CRT - traditional, Flat Panel)?
2. What size is the display?
By default windows runs at a logical resolution of 96dpi (dots per inch). A 15" CRT monitor set to 1024x768 is probably displaying at close to an actual 96dpi (800x600 about 75dpi).
If you have been used to 800x600 things will look small because more can be displayed on the physical screen. I would recommend you persevere with 1024x768 if you can, unless you upgrade your monitor to something larger.
Edited by flossythepig on Tuesday 11th July 13:27
Didn't know that about the title bar. Cool.
twister said:
flossythepig said:
If you are having a problem with the window retaining settings from when you ran at 1024x768 all you have to do is double click on the window title bar. This will maximise the window to fill the available space and the scroll bar should appear.
This is easier than the manual resizing method I described, but it has one flaw-it doesn't change the non-maximised position/size settings, so if at some later date you then double-click the title bar again the window jumps straight back to where it was when it was causing trouble in the first place...
Mind you, having just tried to refresh my memory as to how poorly Windows handles window positioning/sizing during resolution changes, I notice that XP seems to be much better behaved than earlier versions, so maybe this isn't that big an issue depending on which version of Windows Tafia is using.
Using XP home edition sir.
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