Variable Screen Resolution Centring Options

[HeartOfPandora]

I've seen a lot of layouts on CB that I like, but I'd like them a lot more if they were centred in my screen resolution (1280x800). It just looks funny to have a layout on the left of my screen when it's in the centre of a smaller resolution. I understand that those people are centring for 800x600, but it ain't that hard to centre it for all screen resolutions. Professional websites do it, loads of people on CB do it, hell even I do it when the layout calls for it (and I'm really lazy).

I dunno, I'm just whining about something I think every coder should know, I guess. It's 2am *lol*, what do you expect?

Not that hard to centre things, really. Take a 400x200 image banner:

CODE

#class {
position: absolute;
left: 50%;
margin-left: -200px;
...
}

Bam, it's in the centre of every screen. :] Putting something directly in the centre of a screen is easy, just set "left:;" to 50% and "margin-left:;" to exactly half of the width of whatever you're centring. You'd have to play around with the margin a bit more for things that are to the left or to the right of the centre line, but all you have to do is increase or decrease it depending on which side you want it to go to. Check for major browser compatibility (IE, Firefox, Opera...) and you're set!

Enough sleepy ramblings, anyone out there agree or are ya'll sleeping?

Reason for edit: Use [code] not [codebox] for smaller codes. Thanks. :) - Gabi

[venti-anemoi]

I came to hate making center-aligned layouts because xanga + divs + center-aligned + alignment in all browsers and screen resolutions = a lesson in frustration. Tables makes it better, but designing it requires more thought because you have to think of how to blend the sides into the background or think up a cool border/transition or something. If a layout's right- or left-aligned, there's one less side to worry about. Plus, like schizo said, some designs just look better aligned to the side.