Hi all!

I'd like to discuss the use of relative positioning and sizing. When making a new website, is it best to do it with absolute positioning and use the 800x600 screen size (which I understand is the most common) or what other methods are being used by the members in this forum? Anyone that have any good advice as to how to use the relative pos./sizing in a good way?

Joss

Hi Joss,

This is a subject which the more I have tried to understand it, the less I understand. If you have a good example showing the difference between the two approaches, I would be very interested in seeing them!

One puzzle, for instance, is whether or not you cam create the page in absolute co-ordinates, then switch to relative co-ordinates and then publish---and vice versa.

Except for testing final outputs, I usually view everything in Opera 7.20 Beta full screen mode.

Cheers,

Muzz

[This message was edited by RC on September 23, 2003 at 04:48 PM.]

Hi Muzz,

I feel very much the same way...
I have only been using the absolute positioning so far. But with the market flowing over with different screen-sizes (at least here in Norway), I thought I'd better see if someone had any experience with other approaches to this problem. Derry said somewhere that you could group your whole page and use the relative horizontal positioning to center in on any screen size. I understand that this can be a good way to use the rel. positioning. Any other suggestions?

Joss

Hi Joss,

The only difference I can comment on is this: In order to be able to see the enitre working page in Web Engine, I use a 1024x768 screen size, and, when I preview using absolute co-ordinates, the page appears in the upper left corner (publish size = 800x600).

This suggests an origin of (x,y)=(0,0).

I guess this belongs in feature requests, but it would mean more to me if the position of the origin for different screen sizes (once a publishing size is specified) were listed. (Or maybe this is a dumb idea reflecting my ignorance on the subject.)

Muzz

Hi Guys,

There are 4 common ways to develop a webpage. The most standard is to create a page that is top and left justified, and all the elements within the page are static - that is they do not change relative to the user's computer settings. For an example of this see our home page.

Another common design is to have everything centered. So you create a page, say 640/480 and then center it. No matter what the visitors screen setting are,or how wide they have their browser set, the page will be centered. For an example see Curious Trades.

Another way is to create a site that is top-left justified, but the components expand and contract to the resolution/browser settings - see web monkey.

And lastly, some sites use a combination of the above - see yahoo.

You can create all those sites with SiteSpinner or Web Engine. The top-left justified is the easiest to build and the most cross-browser compatible.

The centered site is the next easiest, but shows inconsistent results with NN4 (not many people still using that browser anymore though). This is my personal preference. You can find out how to build a centered site here: http://virtualmechanics.infopop.cc/eve/forums?a=tpc&s=3636038591&f=1246038591&m=7866087862

The other options are a bit more difficult, though can be worth the effort. They take a bit of experimentation to get the objects set right in terms of relative positioning vs relative sizing.

One last note, SiteSpinner and Web Engine also allow you to create relative 'Vertical' positioning and scaling. You don't see too many sites that employ that, so if you want to experiment with something new, that would be the way to go (and be sure to drop us a note of the URL if you do!).

- Derry

[This message was edited by Derry on September 24, 2003 at 10:50 AM.]

Hi Derry & Joss,

I am going nowhere fast with my attempts to "centre" a page on a 1064x768 screen in SVG with Opera.
The only way that I have been able to achieve this result with a 800x600 publishing objective, is to use the Quick Editor and set x=512, y=394. That must mean that, whatever I am doing, I am still publishing in absolute co-ordinates. This of course will only work for that one screen size.

(a) Derry, you refer to a "center" icon. Since I can't locate such an icon, either I have missed the boat, or you are referring to the the vertical and horizontal centering arrows. And I have long had the problem that the use of these two arrows pushes the grouped object up to the upper left corner with (x,y)= (0,0), but only precisely the bottom right one quarter of the grouped object showing.

(b) You also refer to the "relative positioning" icon. Do you mean the two leftmost "96" slots??

(c) In project options, does it matter in this procedure, what the positioning option is set to?

(d) Opera is set to "relative positioning."

HELP!!

Muzz

Hi Guys,

A problem which I hope you will accept as a bug report:

Your procedure, and the centre positioning arrows, do not work properly in straight SVG.

With the SVG co-ordinates set to absolute; I set up the HTML embedding page the way that you described, and all worked perfectly!!!

Muzz

Derry,
Thanks for a good and clear answer and examples. That helped a lot. I think I'll try out the center page option from now on.

Muzz,
Thanks for going with me on this one, and I hope you can figure things out. I am not using SVG, so I can't be much of a help there.

But here's a little about the "centering" arrows. Down at the left bottom of your screen (that is if the toolbar is not scrambled... ) you have the six align icons. After that comes 4 more which have a % (looks like 96!) on them. These are the relative positioning/sizing icons. The two first are positioning, and the next two are sizing.

So: First use the align-center button (second button), and then press the relative horiz. centering button (first of the %-buttons) to have your page centered on any screen size. You will see that the center-align button now appears as pressed.

Maybe this was a waste, since you probably have figured it out by now anyway...Maybe a help for somebody else...

-Joss

Hi Joss,

It doesn't work for SVG directly, but that (and this is loaded with irony) is not a problem because I have to embed all my SVG pages in HTML pages anyway.

Yes, as you can see in my message to Derry above, I did figure out how to do it in HTML --- and have created four published pages on perspective using it tonight. But thanks a bunch for the information...I was beginning to wonder if I missing an icon or two.

Derry: did you note the reference to "scrambled" in Joss' post. It hasn't happened to me in ages, but I do put one of the top taskbars on the side; and the lower bar up top to clear it out of the way of the 600 mark.

SEE new topic where I did a last minute crash lecture on two point perspective and centered all of the pages to boot.

Cheers Joss,

...and aren't you of all people using Opera. I love it.

Muzz

Hi Muzz....

I know, I know....
(Blushing with shame...)
Glad you like it, though!
Actually, my toolbar scrambles quite often. It seems to me that it happens more often when my computer is working hard (when I have many programs running at the same time).

-Joss

Yes, I noted the reference to the scrambled tool-bar. We haven't' heard anything about that is quite a while and so assumed it was resolved.

Joss, if you can repeat a procedure that always scrambles a tool-bar let us know and we will try to track the problem down.

- Derry