Is a Fluid style better than a Fixed style?

**Luigi** · 10-25-2007, 08:05 PM

My designer gave me two options fixed and fluid. One is cheaper to design then the other. Which one should I purchase or does it matter really? Which one ends up being easiest to update with the newer vbulletin versions? (Most worried about that as you can tell).

**Yogesh Sarkar** · 10-25-2007, 08:21 PM

I don’t about others, but in my niche a lot of photos are posted in the forums so it is always best for me to use the fluid design so that it doesn’t looks awkward when a large photo is posted and it can best utilize the available monitor real estate.

**Luigi** · 10-25-2007, 08:23 PM

Does a large photo automatically adjust to a fluid style, or do you mean it just has more room to move?

**Yogesh Sarkar** · 10-25-2007, 08:27 PM

Normally it just haves more room to move, after not every one has 1024 res so you end up either pissing people off with lower res monitor or those who have higher resolution set on their monitors, fluid design takes care of it somewhat.

**Luigi** · 10-25-2007, 08:28 PM

I've been on sites that have a fluid design, and the picture is 1024xsomething, and it breaks the layout still.

**bdude** · 10-25-2007, 10:27 PM

I don't see why it would cost more to code one over the other though

**Imperial** · 10-25-2007, 10:58 PM

I always use the fluid styles. You can use fixed, but then you're limiting your forum to the small possible resolution that will view your site. That tends to be 800x600, not the best for forum & image posting.

Fluid automatically adjusts with the screensize, so it'll look fine on 1024x768 or a widescreen monitor. Given that today, most people are purchasing monitors with larger & larger resolution capacities, fluid allows both the old & new monitors to perform well. An oversized image will still break the style, might invest in an auto-resizer or image size posting limit.