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Pastimes : SI Beta Site Launch - 7/01/99 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul K who wrote (539)	7/16/1999 5:40:00 PM
From: RTev	Respond to of 2340

I think if we cut the white space a smiggen more we are in the right neighborhood. (especially on the right side.) Just shows how difficult it is to please everyone (but, there might be a way as I mention below). I still think the open space on each side of the message has been cut too much, although it looks much better with the navigation links moved to the right. I'd like to see a bit more white space, but certainly not less. It's the message that's important here as so many have pointed out, and the message deserves breathing room. I shouldn't be scrunched up just to conserve space for the other less-vital page elements. But as we've seen, folks use this site in a number of different ways. The variable-length message revealed, for instance, that many folks open their browsers to full screen width even on a big screen. I don't do that. I open a browser window to 640px wide. This allows me to see two full-width browser windows on my screen. It's also the width for which most professional web pages are optimized. The beta SI works adequately at that size if one chooses the "stretch message" option. Unfortunately, the "More Info" column of the stock info table is still set to work only at a screen width of about 800, but everything else works, including the message. At 640 px. a "stretched" message is just slightly longer than what I'd consider optimal column width. (Optimal is about 2.5 alphabets in the column's font). If the white space were removed, however, the column width would stretch far wider than the optimal 2.5-alpahbet-width. But as I said, there may be a way to satisfy everyone (I've tested this only in IE4, but it doesn't appear to depend on browser quirks) . [Edit: Never mind. It doesn't work. The cellpadding is there for that damn box. Because of the box, you just can't have your flush message, Paul. Sigh.] Here's a suggested change. The change is required only in a line of code that's already being altered based on user preferences. Currently, the line that sets the fixed/variable preference is this: Fixed: <table cellpadding=20 border=0 width=600> Variable: <table cellpadding=20 border=0 width="97%"> It's the "cellpadding" value that's creating the white space. My suggestion: Fixed: <table border=0 width=560 align="center"> Variable <table cellpadding=30 border=0 width="97%"> This would set a slightly wider white border, but only if the user chooses the "stretch message" option. On the fixed-width option, the user could narrow the browser all the way down to less than 640 and see the message scrunched right-to-left without a border at all. (There's still a pre-defined border on the left and top sides of the browser which I think should be removed, but that's another issue.)