> A colleague of mine has just shown me a useful little
> freeware program which enables you to easily check how
> images / Websites look at different screen resolutions,
> which we think is going to be useful for our quality
> assurance work on NOF projects.  For more details, see
> below.

Whilst the application you suggest will allow you to see how your site
design *fits* in different size windows, it will not show you the
differences caused by different resolutions.

Resolution has an effect on text and image size.

There is no real substitute for viewing in a variety of browsers on a
selection of monitors set at different resolutions.  You should also
consider the differences involved when viewing on a Mac.

This is a good article that deals with design for different screen
resolutions

http://www.evolt.org/article/640_x_480_Isn_t_Dead_Just_Yet/22/275/index.html

and a link to my favourite window sizing tool:

http://www.brianapps.net/sizer.html

and a useful guide to window sizes (taking into account the framework of the
browser):

http://www.wpdfd.com/browsergrid.htm

note that the maximum safe design size for viewing in a 640*480 pixel window
is: 600*300 pixels.

You may also like to consider AOL users.  AOL has a system that further
compresses JPEG and GIF format images which can make your carefully designed
site look pretty messy.

Info here:
http://webmaster.aol.com/index.cfm?sitenum=2

two tips I have picked up are:

use progressive format for JPEG images, AOL compression is not as
aggressive.

Make every GIF animated by adding a second transparent frame to the GIF
image.  AOL does not compress animated GIF images.


hope this helps

Tony

Xebit Ltd.