Making website work on multiple screen sizes - css

I am trying to make my website work on different screen sizes, I am new in this area and could use some help.
What I am trying to accomplish: Making my website work on different screen sizes without sizing down the content. I have a website close to YouTube's layout and would like it to size down the same way YouTube has it. It simply get's less and less white space on the right and left to more the screen size goes down, Making the website look the same whatever screen size the user may have.
How could I accomplish this?

Put your entire content inside a container like <div id="wrapper"></div>
Then in your css:
#wrapper{
width:960px;
margin:0 auto;
}
Other than you have to start using media queries or adaptive design to create a responsive or fluid layout.

Best practise is to begin with the smallest resolution you want to address and build up from there.
But for the beginning it's best just to work with a fluid layout.
Simplified:
#wrap {
width:90%;
margin:20px auto;
max-width:960px;
}
Put this around your whole content and let content have a width of 100%.
Now you can start and build for smaller resolutions with the help of some media queries.
I'd suggest use just two, one for tablets and one for everything smaller than one.
#media screen and (max-width: 767px) {
/* ALL < TABLET */
}
#media screen and (min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 1024px) {
/* TABLET */
}
There are some great precoded template for responsive layouts but those can be a bit overwhelming in the beginning. If you want to try your hand with some I'd suggest the following:
http://twitter.github.io/bootstrap/
https://github.com/malarkey/320andup/

Related

How to make a grid based layout design responsive?

I am trying to make the design of my website https://take-note.com responsive. I was able to get most of it done except for a part that uses a grid based layout. There are 4 columns of images at the bottom of the page titled "notes", "memes", "field notes" and "front page news". I would like these to appear one below the other on a narrow mobile device. I tried to set the width to 100% but that does not seem to do it.
Any advice from CSS gurus?
Use the media query here like this:
#media (max-width: 767px) {
div.cell {
width: 100%;
margin-left: 0 !important;
}
}
This will make the 4 columns to be below one another in devices with width less then 768px; you can adjust this accordingly to target devices as per your use case

How is the screen size measured for media queries?

I'm building a responsive website. There's a separate set of CSS to apply for smartphones. To do this, I use the following code
#media all and (min-width: 760px) {
.wrap {
/*css for large screens goes here*/
}
}
#media not all and (min-width: 760px) {
.wrap {
/*css for small screens goes here*/
}
}
My smartphone has a "Screen Resolution: 1080 x 1920." but it still displays the CSS for small screens. I'm surprised this is happening because 1080 > 760 so shouldn't the first block apply? Is screen resolution not actually measured in pixels? If not, then how does one find how many pixels in a screen?
I just found 760px from an example, is there a better way to decide when to switch from full size web page to compact for small screens?
There are two different concepts: the physical pixels of the screen, and the CSS pixels.
Initially, they were in most cases the same, but with so-called “retina” or “hidpi” screens, they are no longer the same. The idea is that a CSS pixel should retain about the same size, and be independent from the actual number of pixels on the screen: you don’t want to have text with CSS font-size 12px to have different sizes on screens with the same dimensions because their pixel density changes.
So the 1080 pixel width of your phone is probably mapped to 360 CSS pixels (x3 pixel ratio).
Instead of this
#media not all and (min-width: 760px) {
use this
#media all and (max-width: 759px) {
to address all viewports below 760 width.
ADDITION, answering the question in the comment "I'm asking what does px mean since it doesn't seem to be the physical pixel count on the screen":
It used to be the pixel count on the screen before retina and similar displays were introduced, which had a multiple amount of device pixels (AKA device pixel ratio, between 1.5 to 3 time as much).
Still, when those came up, the size reference for one "CSS pixel" remained the same (i.e. one CSS pixel would be 2 device pixels on a device with a device pixel ratio of 2), otherwise all websites would be displayed at half the size on these devices. So the pixel unit used in CSS refers to "CSS pixels" not to "device pixels" unless otherwise stated (which is only possible in media queries).
Go to development tools of your browser and select body tag and after that, you will find width and height by this:
due to some CSS issue this may not work properly will be great if you create a simple HTML with the following data to get width and height:
Change your media query with this.
#media only screen and (min-width: 760px) {
// for screens above 760px
.wrap {
color: blue;
}
}
#media only screen and (max-width: 760px) {
// for screens below 760px
.wrap {
color: lightblue;
}
}
If you want to change designing based on screen size then apply only screen with your media query.
Ask for more queries.
Thanks.

Media Query to Target ONLY Mobile

I want to make a media query to target just my phone. What breakpoint(s) would I use?
For instance, my body max-width is 800px wide with 2px margins. When the window is less than 800px (mobile?) i want the margins on it to be 0px (this works on my browser). Turns out that my phones screen is hi-res and therefore the width of the display never goes below 800px!
Is this because of pixel ratios?
What do I do?
The meta-view-port tag changes how websites are displayed on your phone, or other small screens that may want to 'adjust' a website for you.
Some screens, for instance - an iphone 5 - with no meta-view-port tag, will size the website to fit your screen / but like a little version of your website zoomed out. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Mobile/Viewport_meta_tag
A combination of a view-port tag, and a media-query in your styles would allow you to change your style rules depending on the screen-size. It's kinda best just to make the breaks where things get ugly and not based on the screen sizes of "Today" that will change next month.
I would suggest building from the smallest screen first and moving up as you go with styles like this:
html {
height: 100%;
background: blue;
}
#media (min-width: 400px) {
html {
background: red;
}
}
#media (min-width: 850px) {
html {
background: green;
}
}
etc.
https://jsfiddle.net/5qhmrym5/
If you already have your site built.. and you really want to target the smaller screens, you can use max-width instead of min-width - but I've found that it takes more time and energy to override styles on the way down - then it does on the way up because styles get more complex for larger screens.
#media (max-width: 850px) {
/* styles */
}
If what you want to change is margin value when viewed on mobile you should design your display for use on any screen above the mobile size, 800px wide for you, then create a media query, similar to the ones in the link commented by #Hynes, which changes just margins to 0px.
You are correct in assuming your device is 800px wide due to ratios, but it also has to do with resolution, which are similar topics here. If you imagine a sports jumbo screen, a pixel is nearly an led in size, vs a 1080px display laptop, where the pixels are nearly unobservable. Ratios and resolutions are the reasons displays are tricky to make, and why values such as em's and percentages have come to be, to bypass the differences in display. This is also a large reason of why media queries are so useful
html {
box-sizing: border-box;}
*,*:before,*:after {box-sizing: inherit;}
Try using box-sizing: border-box on your css and also percentages, this is the way I like it, but surely you will find plenty of information about it, just google it.
Found the solution: https://stackoverflow.com/a/18500871/5906166
You need to include this in your header:
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
Explanation:
Fortunately, you can specify a viewport meta tag in the <head> section
of your document in order to control the width and scaling of the
browser's viewport. If this tag has a content value of
width=device-width, the screen's width will match the device
independent pixels and will ensure that all the different devices
should scale and behave consistently.

#media only screen resolution height issues

I am trying to align a bottom bar that is in homepage footer of my website. I want to adjust it so it will look good on common screen resolutions.
I have an issue with these resolutions 1280x960 and 1280x1024
#media only screen and (max-width:1280px) and (max-height:960px){
.tp-caption.black, .black {
margin-top: 496px!important;
}
And then use this code after that
#media only screen and (max-width:1280px) and (min-height:961px){
.tp-caption.black, .black {
margin-top: 464px!important;
}
The issue is it uses the same css, for both resolutions. 1280x960 media query
also applied in 1280x1024 resolution.
It displays the 2nd media query css code in browser, but ignores it and take
the above query.
I want to set the margin for both resolutions, for both heights 960 & 1024.
Can someone please explain me how to fix this?
Tried the same in fiddle, this works fine.
jsfiddle.net/5wx9qqyq/3/
One possible cause can be, missing closing braces for
#media only screen and (max-width:1280px) and (max-height:960px){ }
Please verify.

media queries bootstrap set minimum responsive size will go?

So using the following code with template I can set when responsive mode kicks in.
#media all and (max-width: 680px)
However is there a query that if the browser width goes below for ex. 380px responsive, items stop minimizing etc. and stay at what would appear at 380px responsive only. So if someone was minimizing browser or had viewport of 280 they would be viewing what it looks like at 380px responsive but with scroll bars?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
You could simply set a min-width on the body element.
Example Here
body {
min-width:380px;
}
Bootstrap doesn't offer that level of control but you can simple add the following media query and then impose styles on elements on screen sizes smaller than 380px wide.
#media all and (max-width: 379px) {
// Style elements specifically for screen sizes less than 380px
}

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