Monitor resolution

[Eggles]

I am a diehard PC user, but because I am being forced to use Macs in the website course I am doing, I am (needless to say) experiencing numerous cross-platform issues.

One problem that no-one was able to resolve in my last class concerned monitor resolution. I have recently created a website at home on a PC that I have checked the appearance of in both IE and NS, and they looked fine. Last Thursday was the first oppportunity of checking its appearance in NS on a Mac. It looked terrible! The text was tiny, although the graphics looked OK. First thing I did was find out how to change the monitor resolution - and sure enough it was set to 1024 x 768 (or whatever the iMac equivalent is). I changed it to 800 x 600 (the size at which the webpage was designed to be viewed at) and it still looked awful. Dropping resolution down further to 640 x 480 helped a little, but the text was still very small. As I have been typing this, I have realised that probably what I also needed to do was the equivalent of 'Apply' to get the new settings to 'take'. How do you do that on a Mac?

P.S. the HTML font size was '2' i.e. 10 point.

P.P.S. If it is important, I don't know what OS the Mac was using (how do you find that out?). However, if relevant, the computers themselves were that coloured 'see-through' type.

[Buzz]

A notorious problem with Netscape on the mac, Eggles.

Unfortunately you need to take into consideration that iMacs ship with the monitor resolution at 800x600 and any user that actually knows how to change it will change it to 1024x768. I have yet to see anyone actually change a monitor settignto 640x480, ever, unless they were testing a site. There is no "apply" feature for the monitor on a Mac like there is on the PC. Once you change the resolution it automatically takes effect like an onSelect event.

IE on the Mac makes type absolutely HUGE! Therefor IE type appears closer to PC settings. Netscape, on the other hand, doesn't and many a site designed for or in IE is unreadable with Netscape.

The ONLY solution is Cascading Style Sheets.
I would set up a style sheet with type set to approximately 10-12 pixels in size. 12 pixels is 12 pixels no matter what browser or monitor it's viewed on and will easily remedy the tiny type in the Mac Netscape.

What OS the Mac was using isn't important but to check it go to the little Apple in upper left corner, click and select "About this macintosh. . . " You'll have to have the finder in the foreground. The window that pops up will tell you the OS version.

I'm moving this to the Web forum.
Click here to go there now. (http://www.cybertechhelp.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=11&t=000107)

[ 17 August 2001: Message edited by: Buzz ]