Is there a way to dynamically resize the webpages?

[mvssysprog]

Hi....

I am very new to using Xara, and am creating my first website (www.stoppersnstuff.net). I currently have my webpage size a 1024x768 pixels. When I look at the website through different viewers and resolutions, my webpage always appears to be much smaller than the screen. I have tried increasing the size of the webpage, but then I get to the point that I have to scroll at lower resolutions to see everything. When I go out to many websites, they seem to fill the screen no matter what the resolution or browser.

Can anyone suggest how I can change my website pages to fill the screen?

Thanks in advance.

Dave

[mwenz]

A short answer to the dynamic width resizing is...no. Xara builds fixed-position and width web sites.

That said, your web site is a good width. Most people don't use a browser full screen width.

Take care, Mike

[Guest]

That said, your web site is a good width. Most people don't use a browser full screen width.

Hehe...that's the funniest argument I heard thus far to defend Xara's fixed width paradigm.
I mean - do you have the slightest evidence for what you are saying?
I personally would never not maximize windows of any program I have on disk.
Those who use overlapping windows might try what Alt+Tab does

Should Developers read this: Adobe Muse and Artisteer (which are 100% wysiwyg) both do allow creating
dynamic width-pages. It would be great if Xara did this too.

[handrawn]

nothing wrong with the statement that I can see

of course it may not be true, but then again it doesn't read to me like a defence of anything....

[Drwyd]

The problem with dynamic pages is that it is very difficult to design a page that looks good at all resolutions. Especially considering the huge range of resolutions that web designers have to contend with now. This is why the majority of sites are now built as a fixed width design, sometimes serving up different designs for various devices.

Strictly speaking WYSIWYG is fixed width. With liquid/elastic layout if the visitor has a different screen size what you see is not what they get.

[mwenz]

Hehe...that's the funniest argument I heard thus far to defend Xara's fixed width paradigm.
I mean - do you have the slightest evidence for what you are saying?
I personally would never not maximize windows of any program I have on disk.
Those who use overlapping windows might try what Alt+Tab does

Should Developers read this: Adobe Muse and Artisteer (which are 100% wysiwyg) both do allow creating
dynamic width-pages. It would be great if Xara did this too.

Glad I could provide a laugh.

Muse builds fixed-width/element/div placement. Adobe is considering one day moving to a more fluid layout scheme. If they have changed that in the past few months, I would be interested in a link stating that.

Artisteer. I own a copy. I have used its bloated code for customizing a couple WP and Joomla sites. But it does build extremely bloated code. I find it easier to just edit the HTML/CSS of the core code of both platforms rather than use it anymore. Maybe one day they will get code-bloat down.

But comparing Artisteer, a template creator for PHP-driven, CSS-controlled, CMS systems is sort of like comparing using MS Word for professional long-document print design to InDesign or another page layout application.

Here's a disclaimer. I don't use Xara for building web pages with the exception of perhaps helping other people here and elsewhere. That is not to say it doesn't work just fine because I have seen some pretty nice sites made with it. My mind just finds it harder than EW & DW to use.

Take care, Mike

***Edit to add*** Here is a link I once saved that I found for someone considering Muse and had written me.
http://www.netmagazine.com/features/...ond-adobe-muse

[Guest]

Hi Mike,
I only reacted on your "(fixed)size is fine, most people don't maximize their Browswers anyway-comment".

You with your answer open up quite a few new cans of worms I did not suggest to discuss.
In short: Muse indeed is capable to do variable widths. I don't have it installed any more because I don't like that one has to rent the Software.
So I can not provide a Screenshot. Also I referred to Artisteers html-page creation feature which indeed allows for dynamic page-widths.
One does not have to use the program to output cms-templates. While I understand that Artisteer is not an option for hardcore web-pro's
I as a End-User am not interested in the look of the code it outputs for as long as the page behaves and loads half way fast.

Finally I find the the article you linked to surprisingly narrow minded for people who obviously do nothing but Webdesign an User-Interface-Design all day long.
It seems that noone of these guys could even imagine a time in which professional publishing to the Web indeed had nothing to do with (hand) writing code any more.
Neither I can (certainly not) nor Adobe with Muse even wants to provide an answer on how that could work.

[mwenz]

No worries. Look at stats for screen resolutions in use and determine what that means as regards browser view ports. I think you'll find that even if someone maximizes their browsers, there is on average only Xpx in usable width for the majority of browser users.

I don't make fixed-pages with two exceptions. I do limit every site in widths. I use max-width and min-width every time. Why? Because I don't want the sites to "break" their layouts. Too large of width and a site becomes more difficult to read following long text lines. Too narrow and a site can flow poorly. So regardless of how wide a browser is sized, at some point (usually between 960px and 1024px) the width will be limited and there will be either a background image or color that fills the remainder of the sides of the pages proper.

I do believe there is a place in web dev for tools such as Xara et al. And I have finished off a couple sites using a different fixed-width web tool for other developers that got stuck in accomplishing something. Works fine. But these tools are a long, long way off from replacing tools such as EW and DW, much less CMS systems.

There is a place for them all.

Take care, Mike

[mwenz]

...In short: Muse indeed is capable to do variable widths. I don't have it installed any more because I don't like that one has to rent the Software...

See, I did not remember that Muse was capable of liquid layout. So this quote is from one of the Muse Team, from April of this year.

Apr 4, 2012 11:40 AM

Truly variable width "liquid" layouts are not supported. However, visual designs that fill the full browser width are possible using browser fill image tiling and 100% width page items. Also page item pinning and browser fill scrolling can be leveraged to create designs where content moves relative to each other when the browser window height or width changes.

We may be exploring responsive layout options for Muse in the future, but right now it is fixed width only.

This is no different than what we are discussing about Xara.

I do believe that Xara, Muse and other fixed-position web dev tools will need to learn to handle media query at some point to enable one to build a responsive site.

Take care, Mike

[RodneyLee]

I'd like to do that also, it would be nice to have width=100%