Adapitve themes anyone?
Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2007 1:14 pm
Hi all,
I would like to share some thoughts with you all....
I am a sucker for choice. Meaning: I like people to view my blog as THEY want it. So I offer a whole bunch of themes they can choose from.
However, most (older) themes do not "play nice" with my content.
I use YouTube a lot (I post a lot of my own vids) and I also use YouTube video lists. But they show up really bad with a lot of themes (even the newer ones like 'Splat').
With most themes there is a restriction on how wide the theme is. This is mostly based on the idea that a theme should be used on a minimum width of 800px (including sidebars). In reality it is even smaller because of the so-called "websafe" area (i.e. take scrollbars into account).
I do not like that.
User information about screen resolution shows that most people are at screenresolutions of 1024px and OVER... (in fact 84% is capable of 1024 and higher)
Don't take my word for it, check-out the stats:
see: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp and: http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats/
In fact: over 90% of all new PC's are bought with a flat panel TFT screen and this has bumped up the screenresolutions in general to a minimum of 1280px (as most come with a 17" inch screen).
Also we have the Media Center revolution going on: people with wide screen TV's that hookup their media center PC.
Why not use all that screen estate? Surveys show that most people that have a 17" screen surf in fullscreen mode.
But wait, you say; what about the ones that do not have the luxury of such a screen? That use a PDA?
Is there a way to cater to all those people?
Yes there is: it is possible to make your design 'adaptive'.
Just check out this article:
http://alistapart.com/articles/switchymclayout
I really like the ideas expressed there and I am very interested if this approach would work for a S9y theme?
A theme that senses that you screen is big enough for the 3 column layout with all the extras... Or that goes to a 2 colum view on its own.. Or even 1 colum...
Hmm... that would be some challenge, not?
I would like to share some thoughts with you all....
I am a sucker for choice. Meaning: I like people to view my blog as THEY want it. So I offer a whole bunch of themes they can choose from.
However, most (older) themes do not "play nice" with my content.
I use YouTube a lot (I post a lot of my own vids) and I also use YouTube video lists. But they show up really bad with a lot of themes (even the newer ones like 'Splat').
With most themes there is a restriction on how wide the theme is. This is mostly based on the idea that a theme should be used on a minimum width of 800px (including sidebars). In reality it is even smaller because of the so-called "websafe" area (i.e. take scrollbars into account).
I do not like that.
User information about screen resolution shows that most people are at screenresolutions of 1024px and OVER... (in fact 84% is capable of 1024 and higher)
Don't take my word for it, check-out the stats:
see: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp and: http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats/
In fact: over 90% of all new PC's are bought with a flat panel TFT screen and this has bumped up the screenresolutions in general to a minimum of 1280px (as most come with a 17" inch screen).
Also we have the Media Center revolution going on: people with wide screen TV's that hookup their media center PC.
Why not use all that screen estate? Surveys show that most people that have a 17" screen surf in fullscreen mode.
But wait, you say; what about the ones that do not have the luxury of such a screen? That use a PDA?
Is there a way to cater to all those people?
Yes there is: it is possible to make your design 'adaptive'.
Just check out this article:
http://alistapart.com/articles/switchymclayout
I really like the ideas expressed there and I am very interested if this approach would work for a S9y theme?
A theme that senses that you screen is big enough for the 3 column layout with all the extras... Or that goes to a 2 colum view on its own.. Or even 1 colum...
Hmm... that would be some challenge, not?