User blog comment:Susanolivia/Fixed Width, Sidebar, and the Removal of Monaco/@comment-1073312-20101020174100/@comment-1066636-20101026095644

@ The 888th Avatar

I agree with your point that 1024 width should have been taken into consideration in the first place, but the further reduction in content space is somewhat of a problem even if you had previously designed your templates/pages with 1024*768-Monaco in mind. As I already said in my last reply, in quite a few cases those 50px are the straw that breaks the camel's back. It's not really about being a "sensible designer" in this case, but simply that the minimum width to work with was reduced, which is a major factor in deciding the design in the first place.

Additionally, while not considering 1024 width when designing templates is a mistake in my eyes, there's still a major difference between deciding "it's ok if the template looks squeezed for 10% of viewers" and having the template look squeezed for all viewers.

For the record, I don't mind fixed width - we had it at the Vault with Monaco as well. But the reduction in content space is a nuisance.