h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A quick look around BBC web pages( http://www.bbc.co.uk/ )shows that the majority load to the left of the screen leaving a margin to the right. Two sites seem to break the rule. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/ and http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/. Is there a reason for this ?

This seems common to a surprisingly large number of websites - leaving much of the page empty; http://www.guardian.co.uk/ for instance. What *is* the reason for this?

That the layout will work also in low screen resolutions

Different screen resolutions.

Like he said

Oh for the days to come when everything on the web will just work, regardless of which browser you use, what your screen resolution is set to etc.

Incidentally, why is screen 'size' called resolution? To me, 'resolution' means sharpness of picture.

Traveller in Time not content with any restrictions
"They could define a 'Standard Width' for pages if the browser does not support any wider.
Strange thing is they keep the pages small for browsers capable of witdhs up to 2000px, where the 320px page size is just weird. Most browsers are able to handle and to render any page in the width your screen has.

They are probably just afraid their overall makeup has to be adapted to support very wide screens. Even while it in most cases is just a few small pieces of code. "

I don't suppose there is a quick fix without having to change the screen resolution. I work on my monitor default 1024x768

A fix?

If you are on Windows, you could set your browser (Internet Explorer?) to be at the smaller size (by dragging its borders). Then use the maximise button for viewing better sites and the restore to overlapped windows (same button but with changed graphic!) to view this one. Just a single mouse click each time.

Alternatively, have a different browser for doing this (there are lots available) and set its default size to be right for here while your other browser is the size you want for everywhere else.

The over-engineered option is: to write your own browser to read the source code, which then either detects the site to switch itself between window sizes or removes the offending code lines by working out its own display.

Thanks for your suggestions SEF.
I've played around with Firefox a bit. It's Maximise/Restore button seems to default to the 800x600 size, so that the page fits but only part fills the screen, at least the picture is centralised. I think that that is as good as it gets. It seems that backward compatibility is the real problem. It must annoy people who have a high res monitor set in a high res mode.