Best screen size for web site.

[Chaky]

Hello!

What would you say is the best screen size of a website. I've just started on a new one, but i know it wont fit on most monitors. Mine is set to 1280 x 960 which makes it hard to judge on smaller resolution. I hate changing it as is messes with my icons .

So, what's a good size to use in this age?

[Deathdart]

I'd say you should go with either 1004px or 780px width as many people are still stuck on a 1024x768 resolution. Or you could just make your page fluid after designing it at these resolutions so that it fits the user's screen.

[Aeoll]

Something a little under 1024 pixels wide would be fine- so it would fill most of a 15.4" resolution, but would look small and neat on larger monitors

Height doesnt really matter, it just depends on whether you want to keep a small, central box in the middle (like a portfolio site for example), or you'd prefer something longer.

[TommyGun96]

Yeah, as said above... the most common resolution used by internet users is 1024 x 768. Just make yourself the proof and use different internet browsers and make screen captures of he whole screen and then calculate the optimized viewable area.

Good luck! =)

[JonnyHoy]

As said above..

Or just learn xHTML/CSS, design with DIV's rather than tables and let users of all resolutions enjoy your website =] Furthermore, you're upholding modern web standards and making your designs that little bit more futureproof - especially when more and more clued-up clients are asking for it these days...

[lindlau]

1024x768 53.05%
800x600 10.25%
1280x1024 10.20%
1280x800 9.24%
1440x900 4.25%
1152x864 3.26%
1300x1300 2.92%
1680x1050 1.81%
1280x768 1.22%
1280x960 0.89%

Those are statistics for one of my websites, wide-screen is much more popular than some time ago, ihmo 1280xsomething will be standard very soon.

If someone needs this information:

browsers:
Internet Explorer 53.69%
Firefox 39.31% (bravo!)
Mozilla 3.33%
Opera 1.64%
Safari 1.63%
Netscape 0.10%
Blazer 0.04%
KLXPSCX 0.04%
Camino 0.03%
Mozilla Compatible Agent0.03%

source: g-analitics

[suh00ail00]

well mine is 1024x768 but i change when i am designing it gives me more space

[lindlau]

Very good is FF with Web Developer toolbar. Have button to resize your browser to any resolution. Using it all the time.

And for preview in other browsers try:
http://v03.browsershots.org/
take ages but can show your website in different browsers and os's

[afterglow]

The statistics for me:

1. 1024x768 1,946 59.35%
2. 1280x1024 513 15.65%
3. 1280x800 282 8.60%
4. 800x600 198 6.04%
5. 1152x864 121 3.69%
6. 1440x900 80 2.44%
7. 1280x960 39 1.19%
8. 1680x1050 33 1.01%
9. 1280x768 19 0.58%
10. 1400x1050 11 0.34%

[UberAnimator]

I generally make mine 800 px width by 100% height, I center it and call it good.

[switch_cs]

Hello.. when i'm making websites i usually use 950x750... or anything less than 1000px for the width. I just want to make sure that browsers in a smaller monitor won't have s scrollbar anymore appearing on their screen.. Hope this helps...

[koodorihitori]

When I design layouts, I usually go with 800x600 so the size doesn't get messed up with smaller screen resolutions.

[Neal]

Little off subject, I'm surprised to see I'm in such a minority as a Camino user, lol. .03% wow!

[tsmith]

I generally make mine 800 px width by 100% height, I center it and call it good.

Majority of my work is the same as this.

[DreamSky]

The recent winner 800x600 continuously loses popularity. Generally the most used resolution today is 1024x768 and the most used browser is still Internet Explorer (I hope not for too long ).

Don't judge by looking at the statistics of one or a few sites because such statistics depend on where the traffic for the particular site comes from (more developed countries, etc.), what the site is about, and etc.

It is best to design your sites fluid/floating so they would fit any resolution but this requires more skills and, let's admit it, a lot of time trying to make it compatible to most of the browsers .

Anyways, you don't necessarily need to change your personal screen size to see how your site will look on different resolutions. Use one of the many website resolution test services offered on the web for that.
Here are two:
http://www.screen-resolution.com (requires IE - I hate it )
http://www.yournew.com/resolution_test.cfm

There are many other and I am sure there are better than these two so search around.

[irxstudio]

Rather find a way of having flexible resolution, or a tool on your site where the user can switch between narrow, wide, or automatic.

I'm not sure how this is done, I'm not into the codding, but there are ways.. thats what I'm sure for. However, as people said before, probably most popular res is 1024x768.

I see Firefox fans here, *poke* Dreamsky. Cheers!

My two cents.

[Unique]

Hello.. when i'm making websites i usually use 950x750... or anything less than 1000px for the width. I just want to make sure that browsers in a smaller monitor won't have s scrollbar anymore appearing on their screen.. Hope this helps...

me too

my fingers almost automaticly type those numbers in a new file window.
(i'm a web desinger)

the reason, as many said before is that most of the people using 1024 and more width - so it'll feet for them. and those how not - well... let them suffer so they change to 1024 too

b.t.w.
my first messege, so hi everybody!

[mattgfx]

Someone mentioned fluidly designing your webpages. Is that the same thing as Elastic that Dreamweaver gives you as templates? I am not a pro webdesigner but I can make my way around ok.

[Unique]

i guess so.
it means thats part (or all of the design) have width in percents, so they strech according to window size

[blazehd]

The most used resolution is 1024x768. However, with a lot of companys pushing cheaper LCD widescreen monitors 1440x900 (I think) is being used more and more by people.