To center or not.

Case by case for me. Actually, I had to pop out and look at my last few to know for sure

I guess it depends on what works better for the design in question.

I usually center, unless there's some dHTML which makes that impossible. I used to always do flex-width but now that I"m surfing at higher resolutions I don't like those so much anymore. They're usually fine up to about 1024 but after that it just gets too stretchy.

Depends what fits best. Personally I like centered the most.

Side Navigation could go left, but top navigation could go centered As mentioned, I think a lot depend on the theme, layout and/or subject matter

I second busy's answer on this one.

don't know if this relates (didn't get t' sleep last night so I'm not thinkin' too clearly), but an approach I like for differing resolutions is demonstrated here - blocks of imaged text that "slide" when they can (obvious file size compromise) - it doesn't really work well anymore cuz I lost an image (af2.gif) and can't get at Illustrator to replace it

Of course, using images has all sorts of other draw backs.

CSS-2 (if it's ever implemented) has max/min for table widths, which is amazing. You can constrict the width of the table, but still allow it to expand a little.

I currently let the design expand and contract, but restrict the width of the text using a div or setting p to a pixel width. Or tables, of course.

I'm finding myself leaning more towards non-flexible layouts, but centered (I get a virtual crick in my neck when I come across a fixed left or fixed right layout).

Suzanne

Quote: Of course, using images has all sorts of other draw backs.

other than slower downloads...?

I'm like Megan, I used to have flexi everything but now I tend to go for fixed centered designs.

The trouble with using images for text other than slowing the site down is that you can't copy text from a site, it's generally harder to read and doesn't print as well.

The worst thing about using images for text is that none of it will be indexed/searchable

Quote: Originally posted by mmi
other than slower downloads...?

yes. usability down. search engine ranking down. forward compatibility down. data integrity down. print quality down. legibility, editability, redesign ease -- down (in some cases, eliminated).

S

SE ranking can be irrelevant or achieved through other means

how are "forward compatibility," "data integrity" and usability affected in this case?

I don't have any problem printing or reading that text

editability and ease of redesign can be largely irrelevant if no changes are likely

Dahlink, if you are creating art, then by all means, do it any way you wish. However when creating large sites with archived data, being able to access that data in the future without having to recreate it (a considerable and pointless expense) is very important.

If the data is text, it must remain text so it can be wrangled and grepped and translated and interpreted and parsed and fed to various mediums.

Images, lovely and vital as they are, are crap if they are only of text.

Printing one page as an image v. text doesn't make a difference, but printing an article, say a few pages long that is an image instead of text means the writing, the words, are unnecessarily difficult to read. They are blurry and will cause eyestrain.

Surely you can see how that affects usability, forward compatibility and the integrity of the data.

Again, if you are thinking like a Magazine article, finished in someone's hands, that's one thing. But rest assured all those pretty articles remain as text in a layout program somewhere, so they can be altered, reused, fed to different media, et cetera, without having to retype the damn things or suffer through the vagaries of OCR every time.

As always, it depends on what you are doing, but on the whole, the solution you propose has limited real life applications and would be more harmful than helpful for most people and situations.

Suzanne

with those qualifications, I accept yer analysis, professor