Matthew Reidsma

Work Notes

Updates from the GVSU Libraries’ Web Team.
Archive // Subscribe: EmailRSS

Library website: embiggened

Since our site merged with the campus template 3 or 4 years ago, the largest the site’s content every got was about 1000 pixels wide. The site has been responsive since mid-2011, so it scaled nicely on smaller screens, but no matter how big your screen got, the content area never made it over 1000 pixels.

Until now.

LibGuides have recently moved into the library template, and with the library navigation taking up a column on the left, much of the content was feeling crunched. So, until we can move to the new version of the campus CMS (with horizontal navigation!) I tossed in a quick fix to help LibGuides 2.0 and every other site that uses the template. I told it to keep getting bigger.

Library homepage screenshot embiggened

The site will now stop increasing the size of the content area at around 1300px. Since most computers made in the past 5 years have screens with aspect ratios of 16:9 rather than 4:3, they are much wider than they used to be.

Of course, a caveat to LibGuides folks: when you see your LibGuides on your 1300px wide screen, remember that you don’t know the width of the screen that your patron will be using to look at the site, so be sure to test it at all kinds of window widths. Also, if you use a projector to show your guide in class, projectors here will display the screen at a maximum width of 1024 pixels, so be sure to preview your guide before you use a projector.

As always, let me know if you have any questions!