CERN invented the World Wide Web as a graphical interface for the internet. They set a standard screen size of 800 by 600 so that those of us with small monitors would not have to scroll side to side.

Why can't NAM use this standard and lock the screen to 800 by 600?

Another rant while I am on my soap box...

What ever happened to frames? You design the initial web page with frames and then you can put NAM logo's in the top frame and buttons on the side frame. Then the largest frame can have the main information. And they can be locked down so that people can not shrink them, Should you choose. Frames save load times, especially for those of us who can not get DSL and can not afford cable internet access. By using frames, the NAM logo and buttons would not load each time we view a new topic. I understand not all browsers support frames. But all the latest versions of the normal browsers all support frames. People need to upgrade browsers every now and then.

 

CERN did set a standard but as with most things technology has continued to evolve past the standard. In the following article (dated 2003) a survey indicated that a majority of computer users already had resolutions greater than 800x600.

The way NAM is designed is based on a dynamic width...meaning that it will be as wide as the user's browser is wide (whether that means full screen or if the browser is smaller than the displayable space on the desktop. This was done so that the area provided by the user's browser could be maximized for use when displaying information on the site. Not to say that there are not ways to break this in the forums (ie - someone posts a very wide image) then horizontal scrolling will be provided. As for vertical scrolling, there is simply no useful way to provide a large amount of information in a 600 pixel high window without forcing the user to page...and page...and page... As for width the gutters are designed to be 175 pixels wide so that the middle block of each page can be dynamic.

While frames are difficult to program with (one window controlling the actions of others), the argument you make seems to be a page load size/speed type of issue. The fact is all recent browsers cache graphical content and the header of NAM was designed with this in mind. The first time the site is visited many of the images (header, background, smilies, etc.) are cached on the browser. Given this there should not be a peformance penalty to the end user. The only thing that can impact a user is the time that his/her browser takes to render the page. Depending on which browser you are using there can be either good or mediocre performance. Regardless most computers are still faster than the data connections they are connected to.

Mark

 

Just got a wide screen NAM looks even better!