following the above conversation, i am wonder if there is any way to find have a fluid layout until a resoultion and have it behave fixed after that.
eg: until 1280* resolution, it behaves fluid and after that it behaves fixed?

any thoughts!

My technical blog however is a very different story… I would say the average resolution is higher and an overwhelming majority of Mozilla Firefox users!

@Rob – I still use an older CRT at home, because they are supposed to be better for gaming (refresh rate). At least that used to be true? Not sure if it still is? I’m sure we will all be using the flat widescreens before too long.

So if anything, I’d be more concerned about sites that fall apart on smaller screens than those that leave empty space on bigger screens.

Already, you might be hard-pressed to find a consumer-grade notebook released in the past 3 months that’s not widescreen. And I’ve noticed that the major PC vendors are pushing widescreen monitors with their desktops more & more.

So, will the “normal” aspect ratio monitor most of currently have in the near future become as outdated as CRT monitors?

I have also been wondering what type of affect the iPhone is going to play on development in the near future too. With smart phones becoming more and more popular due to good design and a ton of features that everyone wants and doesn’t feel overwhelm by, we may see max-width and min-width put in a lot more different ways and probably stylesheets loaded dynamically based on the technology/device being used versus the browser being used.

In either situation, I look forward to better CSS, better JavaScript, and the technological advances that drive HD and smart phones into the price ranges of the Average Joe.

What I am saying is that with HDTV’s and widescreen monitors becoming much more prevalent you might want to think about that in your next design layout.

I will go out on a limb and say that I think many designers use a fixed width though because it’s significantly easier to design.

Of course the beforementioned fluid design would thus work exactly the same as if it were on a slightly lower resolution (think minus 150 to 300 pixels depending on personal preferences and resolution), but I don’t think it’s at all uncommon from what I see around me. The example of my mother is just because she isn’t what I’d call in any way a “poweruser” like you could probably say most of the people I know are, many of whom also use sidebars… if their resolution reasonably permits it. It’s probably more common among Opera and Seamonkey users than among others though.

Aside from that, I quite like the look where not all of the screen is used, also seen on this site when you scroll down from the in-page sidebars. This is actually the main reason that I did it like that on my personal weblog. On the examples given I’d say zeldman.com also looks like it was consciously intended to be like that as well, rather than an oversight. The copyblogger and zengarden layouts do have a tad of an oversight feeling over them however. Maybe it’s an added feeling of luxury that you can afford to simply not use an inch or two of your screen? Just saying it’s not neccesarily a bad thing to let some inches go unused.