Web Design with HTML and CSS

146

A brief history of layout techniques on the web

Web Design with HTML and CSS Digital Classroom

Flexible layouts are so named because they are designed to adapt to the width of the browser

window. This style of layout is useful when users have diff erent monitor resolutions, making

it impossible to build a fi xed-width layout that looks the same on every screen. A properly

designed fl exible layout can automatically adjust to fi t the user’s browser window.

Flexible layouts readjust as the browser window changes size.

You could argue that fl exible layouts are more appropriate for the web. It is, after all, not

print: both text and images on a web page can refl ow. Now that mobile devices make up a

substantial proportion of web browsers, a fl exible layout might be better suited to these new

interfaces than a fi xed-width layout.

Flexible-width layouts are much more diffi cult to build. There are more decisions for the

designer to make and more options to consider. For this reason, you will learn how to create

a fi xed-width layout in this lesson.