Optimized Appearance - Web Standards: Mastering HTML5, CSS3, and XML - page 316

Figure 9-1. A three-column layout
You can see the main menu on the top of the page. Underneath the main menu there is the main content. On the
left there are submenus, while on the right there are additional functions, such as a search box and blog entries.
Centralized-Column Layouts
Another typical arrangement applies a centralized column with a width of approximately 700-1000 pixels (typically
760 or 960 pixels). Ideally, such centralized columns are not wider than about 1000 pixels to ensure that the main
content remains visible on resolutions back to 1024×600 (WSVGA) 1 or smaller, without truncating the sides or adding
too much empty space to the sides. As you will see in the next section, modern web sites use columns proportional to
the screen rather than columns with a fixed width, which was the common practice for a decade and a half.
1 The next standard and de facto standard resolutions such as 1366×768 (FWXGA) are larger than some screen resolutions of modern
mobile devices with Internet browsing capabilities, however the typical resolution is constantly growing, and even medium-size
tablets usually support 1920×1080 (full HD) or higher resolution. For smaller smartphone or tablet screen resolutions, web sites can
also be optimized using alternate style sheets, as discussed earlier in Chapter 5.