The Red Brick Times

I got a look at this design on an 800x600 resolution monitor today. Man, it sucked. On 1280x800 (my setup) it's great. On 1024x768 it's ok. But 800x600? Forget about it. I don't know what to do now. Does anyone (except obviously the library) use that resolution anymore? Shit. I have a lot of time invested in this. The big comment thread a couple of posts down has a partial log of work I've been doing. Oh well.

Do you prefer the old design? It won't take long to restore that. Please let me know.
Posted 1:53 PM by whatley (7) comments

       Comments:

I am just a sentimental softie, albeit new to the site. I liked the old stuff better. Sorry for the time invested. Now you can write that book you have always wanted to but could never find the time.
xxoo

# posted by  Terri S : January 11, 2006 5:25 PM
 
I looked at it in 800x600 (Firefox) and it looked good to me so am not sure what you meant when you say it sucked. Both Robin and I like the new color scheme but like Andy have reservations on the font size. The other thing I noticed is that there is no obvious way to collapse the comments once you open them.

# posted by  jeichenlaub : January 12, 2006 9:00 AM
 
John - Just to get our terms straight, this template has a center justified container a little under 800px in width. Monitors set higher will see a muted orange border on both sides. Monitors at 800 resolution will see the container with a tiny bit of border. The container backgrounds are white and two shades of gray. The library monitor didn't show the contrasts between white and grays well at all. It was very washed out. The text, especially on the sidebar, was overpowering, and the absence of the muted orange on both sides really changed the whole inpression. I dunno, it certainly wasn't what I had in mind.

I think a part of my dislike sprang from my being used to higher resolutions in general. I don't know if anything would look good to me at 800. Question is how much importance I should give viewing through lowres monitors? A lot, a little, none?

I'm glad somebody besides me likes the color scheme. You and Robin are obviously people of refined taste.

# posted by  whatley : January 12, 2006 10:38 AM
 
Oh, I forgot, comments now open in their own page (check the URL when reading). No collapsing like before. If you're seeing something different let me know.

# posted by  whatley : January 12, 2006 10:40 AM
 
Russ,
I have 1024x768 and it looks fine, resolution wise. At higher res it becomes too small to read on my monitor.

It may just be that I was used to it, but I found the old display easier to read and I did like the comment feature that John mentioned.For me its an eye issue. The current scheme physically hurts my eyes. I have a hard time with sites that have dark fields with white lettering. It becomes an effort keep the text from turning into streaks of white. That's what's happening here particularly with the red text which may be why the sidebar seems so intrusive. Maybe playing with varying shades of text and background might help to head off a complete redesign. You might do a couple of samples and post screen captures side by each in a link and have the teeming masses vote on it.

The problem you experienced on the library computer(not differentiating the grays) is probably a monitor/video card color calibration problem that their tech guy should address. Sounds like brightness/contrast issue.

# posted by  A. O. : January 13, 2006 12:05 PM
 
It's nice to have something small and non-controversial to bicker about! I got a pair of glasses a couple of months ago made just for my middle distance vision (computer screens, prices on shelves at grocery store, Hooters' calendar pics). I just started using them. They resolve a lot of the "assume the bifocal position" of head tilted back, nose scrunched up, and mouth gaping open when trying to read stuff on the screen. I just started using them and stopped the involuntary drooling.

# posted by  Andy : January 14, 2006 7:32 PM
 
Been thinking about the 'font-size' resolution issue. Dug around a little bit in the style sheets. Look like the font-size (for most of the presentation) is fixed at 12 pt. That would explain the overwhelming text at 800x600 and the hard to read at large res. [font renders relative to screen size]. Instead of setting font-size:12pt in the body element you might try setting it in em as the others are set. If you want finer grain control you might look at a javascript to get the res from the client then choose alternate stylesheets (more admin but very effective). You could also handle the display div width in the same files and thus preserve the orange border in every res.

# posted by  jeichenlaub : January 19, 2006 10:20 AM
 
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