Thread: 800x600 res Applications..?

If the target machine is a PC running any mainstream operating system or one of its earlier versions, 800x600 is still pretty much the standard minimum resolution.

The operative words are standard and minimum. What it means basically is that if the programmer doesn't know a thing about the target machines that will run his application, developing for 1024x768 will break for some users, whereas developing for 800x600 will work for everyone. Window resizing and automatic layout adjustments I mentioned earlier somewhere on this thread, are the best way to go about designing for a minimum resolution and still maintain a pleasant look in higher resolutions. If no one asks me, and I no little of who wil run my app, I design for 800x600 every day of the week. This way I can ensure my app runs even if the user didn't have his graphics card drivers.

That's when we don't know anything except the target OS. So, abachler advise is the correct one, in my opinion. On this case designing for anything above 800x600 is a bad idea. Designing for anything below 800x600 is silly.

The next thing is target users. If you are coding a power app meant to be used by power users or conversely you are coding an invoice application meant to be used by small businesses... I don't think I need to go on with this paragraph. You get the idea.

It's completely irrelevant what we don't know. What is important is what we know. Since we know very little, I advise 800x600 and ask the OP to detail what type of application this is.

Just a note: Contrary to what I'm hearing here 1024x768 is NOT the standard minimum resolution out there. Don't even go there. Many, many computers are used by older people, people with disabilities, people in business which are still using 5 (if not more) year old machines, people in the government which are still using 10 (if not more) year old machines, children, ... What more, the emergence of small screen laptops has been having an annoying side effect of making some people adopt again lower resolution settings.