neatnettricks

[blueboxer]

Back in the good old days computers, as they moved from green and amber to composite colours and CGA and EGA and VGA there was one consistent characteristic of computer monitors. They had screen proportions like a photograph, of 4:3. And that was it and everyone could program their web pages accordingly.

Now I go to the computer store and see laptops with screens of 15" and 15.4" and 15.6" and 16" (all the usual diagonal measurement) and "office" and "widescreen" and "16:9" and (frankly, God knows what) dimensions and proportions, and every website I got to seems to have problems rendering their pages to suit.

What is going on? Who is to blame? Will we ever see some kind of standardization again? Or will we forever be losing sides or tops or bottoms of pages, and scrolling sideways or up and down, because our legacy computers (a whole week old) don't match the latest shape fad?

Even when I need a new computer or monitor, I won't have a clue what to buy!

[drmark]

The old screen proportions became screen resolutions and there are some general standardizations.

From about 1990 to 1996 the screen resolution standard was 640X480. From 1998 until about 2002 the standard resolution was 800X600. Today as the size of monitors has increased, most web sites are built around the current standard resolution pf 1280X1024 (which translates to a 5:4 size). You will find that at the higher resolution settings you will not need to do all of the scrolling you mentioned.

As for selecting a monitor it can be overwhelmingly confusing. My advice is an LCD in as big a size as you can afford or accommodate on your workspace.

Mark

[blueboxer]

Thank you for the explanation, Mark. I have two issues. First, my increasingly imperfect eyesight leaves me a bit edgy even on my 800 x 600 CRT. (17") Not that it won't support higher resolutions, my eyes wont.

I am also space-limited otherwise I might solve matters with the biggest LCD screen made, but fundamentally I'm just constitutionally pretty much unable to toss something that is working perfectly - like my crt, for instance. But when it goes wonky I'll have a new LCD in a flash - I'm very eager for the benefits of lower space and power consumption.

[drmark]

I have the same problem with eyesight issues. I have my resolution set at 1152X864 which is not quite so small and still allows full web pages to be seen, and then I have increased the font size in XP to help with the readability. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310543 .

Maybe this would help you a bit?


Mark

[blueboxer]

Well, my monitor doesn't offer 1152 x 864, it jumps from 1024 x 768 to 1280 x whatever. It does offer various frequencies, at least four for the 800 x 600 mode I use. Which should I pick, and why?

There are major constraints, but within them I gather I can have sort of any font I please in any size I please, so I can have the wider picture then bump up the type size till it's still readable.

Maybe I'll try that first on my Ubuntu partition; it defaults to 1280 x 1024 otherwise known as forget it.

And yes, I did get my monitor at a garage sale, some old guy with a beard was unloading the contents of an ark...

[drmark]

The higher the "frequency," the less times your monitor refreshes. i.e. the less rate of "flicker" (usually not consciously detected) and the less eye strain. So set it at the highest rate it shows available for you monitor. His also becomes less of an issue with LCD monitors.

But hey, CRTs are not all bad. Many (most?) professional graphic artists still use a CRT monitor because of its unsurpassed accuracy in recreating details. The only real benefit from an LCD is less power consumption and less physical space requirement; otherwise, it is hard to beat a CRT that is working correctly.


Mark

[blueboxer]

As it happens I have a couple of cursor cronies on another (non-computer) forum who are quite vehement on the superiority of CRT monitors for their professional graphics work - I'v had the odd earful!

Thanks for explaining the what and why!

[Karl]