changing GreenLeaves to fixed width

[64North]

I would like to change the GreenLeaves template to a fixed width layout, the current look (see attached) is just too wierd.

So what I would like to do is to essentially create a div that includes the left column, the center, and the right column, and centers that within the page without to center the content within the columns.

Please advise. Thanks in advance.

[Greg]

Open the css file and find:
div.page
{
background-color: #FFF;
margin: 0 auto;
width: 100%;
}

and change to:
div.page
{
background-color: #FFF;
margin: 0 auto;
width: 770px;
}

Change 770px to whatever you want.

Or If you would like to have the header and footer at 100% width and the center content at a fixed width do this.
Keep this at (css file)
div.page
{
background-color: #FFF;
margin: 0 auto;
width: 100%;
}
and now open header.tpl and find:
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
and change that to:
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="770px" align="center">

Again change 770px width to your liking.

[64North]

Thanks Greg, that worked great!
I did adjust the div.categories div.col width to 185 so that I can fit three columns, and my overall width in div.page is 980px now.

[Vincent Wright]

980px is pretty strange widht.

There is a good reason for having fixed width of 760px or 770px -- it allows users with 800x600 displays to view the page without a horizontal scroller. And horizontal scrollbars are considered one of the major evils on the net. (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050711.html)

[64North]

I go with CNN as my measure of what width is acceptable. ;)
They recently changed from 770 to 980. My target audience is usually technically inclined, so they are unlikely to run 800x600 (in fact, Google Earth requires 1024x768 or it will not run).

Google Analytics puts the 800x600 crowd at 9.35% of all those visitors who have javascript enabled, and only 7.39% of those who visited last week. Too small a number for me to consider them. Also, I don't have anything in the right column at this time, thus the 800x600 dudes will still see the full directory, less some menu bar options.

The 800x600 types really need to upgrade, a monitor+gfx card that will run 1024x768 just fine costs like $10 total at a garage sale.

[Vincent Wright]

Makes some sense.

Hope this is a trend and soon the world will get rid of 800x600 resolutions.

[WTM]

Even though I am using two 19" LCD's side-by-side with 1024x1280 resolution I usually have at least one sidebar open in my browser and I never maximize windows.

In my humble opinion unless you must have larger area to show some huge graphics anything wider than 800px is asking for trouble.

Entrance pop-up, horizontal scroll bar or browser resize - I am gone forever...

Also it is much easier to read text on narrow pages.

But again it is just my opinion... :eek:

[64North]

I may go back to narrower width once I figure out how to force the order of categories rather than having them in alphabetical order. If I use 2 columns (770px wide) then important categories show up below the first page, and that's just not good.

It's probably fairly easy to force the categories to show up in a certain order, if I could just find the time to check into this. It's 3:08am and I just got one with work, and I have to be back at the office at 8am at the latest, preferably at 7. Ah well, this deadline will pass as well, and then there will be peace and quiet at work ..., maybe ..., probably not :(