Whats ETs Opinion about Fixed-Width Layout?
There was a great debate raging within HTML authoring circles three years ago about the use of fixed (pixel) width tables to allow artistic layout of pages. HTML purists complained that using a fixed-width table violates the very idea of HTML, which is to provide a cross platform, software and hardware independent method of publishing content on the WWW. There is certainly truth in that viewpoint. If I set up a page with a fixed width of 700 pixels, it will look great on an 800W x 600H pixel display, a very popular screen resolution in use today. That is it will look great so long as the user has the viewing window maximized. If they have the viewing window sized to half the screen, or are using an old Macintosh with a 465 pixel maximum screen width, the page will look terrible, and the user will have to use a horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the page to scroll left to right in order to see the whole thing. Fixed-table proponents countered that some content “needs” a certain widt
