See the effect at the simple layout I ‘m experimenting with on my website.

The fluid/liquid layouts I’ve seen were often the result of web developers rather then web designers. Although there are bare areas to the right and to the left of fixed layout websites, they don’t give a sense that the website is barren or lacking. Which I like.

It is just like movie, it has an aspect ratio because that is the way it is ment to be viewed. Sure some televisions will strech and pull an image but that is up to the end user. Much like what browsers are doing now with zoom. Anyway that is my 2 cents. The idea of fluid is great but when a site does go really big or small i have never seen one that looks good (or looks like what the designer would intend), there is always a general browser size that works best for any site. Which is why i think that people with large monitors don’t have the browsers in full screen. So why not just fix the size.

Anyways, I am working on a slight redesign/tweak. I’ll be honest, when I did this template (really quick) i didn’t know the limitations/options in WordPress. Now I’m pretty aware of what’s going on, so I can afford to do something a little cooky.

Remember the old days when there wasn’t any CSS ? Oh man. Anyway, I do prefer a fixed layout. Most people with widescreen monitors and high resolutions usually work in window mode anyway. Unless they are doing heavy duty stuff that requires alot of real estate - like 3D, or post production.

As for site looking the same all the time, for example, if you have a graphical banner, sometimes it’s inconvenient to make sure it’s left side and/or right side of the graphic can expand as the monitor expands.

The sites where content is moved based on browser/window size, do you have a link to that resource? I imagine it has to do with Javascript figuring out browser/window size and changing style attributes, eg. changing display from inline to block.

I’m definitely looking forward to CSS 3 spec and agree with the suggestions you mentioned in your final paragraph.

Again, thanks for the comment Kevin, appreciate it buddy.

Knowing what your site should look like all the time: You should know what it’ll look like in different situations anyway, and you can use css to reduce some of the variety.

Preventing long line lengths: This is the biggest problem in my opinion. However, just because a user has a 1920×1200 pixel resolution doesn’t mean they are/should be filling the entire thing up with a web page. I believe maximizing everything is primarily a Microsoft Windows behavior. If the line lengths are too long, at least the user has the option of reducing the browser’s width with a liquid layout. Liquid is also more accommodating is the site’s visitor is using a larger-than-normal font size.

There are sites that have columns that when there is space available move to the right, reducing the vertical scrolling. Otherwise they place themselves below the regular content. This is in my opinion the ideal situation.

At any rate, many of these line length issues will be solved (or at least delayed) once the CSS 3 spec is finished and implemented on web browsers. The column attribute will allow columns to be implemented easily without javascript hacks to equal out the column height.

In the end however, I believe that choosing one over the other depends on the content of the website. Photo galleries for instance look best with the more space they have. Also, search engine result pages are often superior with long ling lengths so that more results can be fit in vertically. Blogs on the hand look best with reduced widths.