I’ve widened the page to 800 points, which looks better to me. If this breaks anybody’s browser could they advise me and I’ll put it back. Better still if someone could tell me how to get a layout that would be smart in these respects, they would get the priceless award of a free post on a topic of their own choosing[1]
fn1. I was thinking of a guest post, but actually, if someone could show me how to do this, I’d be willing to write a post on any topic they nominated (the more outlandish the topic, the more off-topic the likely result, of course). Also, how can I get my footnotes in smaller type? Is there a problem with WordPress and Textile?
John Quiggin 
John, I think I have the solution. I have emailed you a stylesheet that you might try.
Your footnotes are marked with id=”fn1″, id=”fn2″, etc. If you want to make them smaller, you’ll want to add class=”fn” or similar (I’m not sure where you need to make this change, as I’m not sure how you generate your footnotes) and then add .fn { font-size: 80%; } to your style sheet.
John, I use a computer I bought in 1999 with a standard sized monitor and I generally use Netscape 7.0 The text in the right hand column is just off the end of the monitor – by about a centimetre. In other words, it looks like this:
“An Australian economist wh
the rest is outside the screen.
Mark,
The only way I can provoke this sort of behavior is by setting the screen resolution to SVGA (800 x 600), with VGA (640 x 480) being worse. I would guess that is the problem here.
John,
I would suggest that setting the width to about 750 would be optimal – I use a 1600 x 1200 resolution so any size would work, but normal web design is to allow for an 800×600 screen resolution which is the lowest normal resolution these days. Once you add in the right hand scroll bar (normally up to 45 pix) and a little bit more you get 750, the width I normally work on for general internet use.
If you want to cope with the old (VGA) screen resolution, use a width of 595 pix, but this looks a bit silly on higher res monitors than 1024 x 768, so I would suggest the 750 as a good compromise.
I still see a “h1” and a “p” with the id of “header” — the page can’t validate with that. It may not cause rendering bugs in modern browsers but you never know. 1 id of each type on a page only.
I’m not super-familar with WordPress page templates but I could give one a go and send it your way; I think there are a few problems with the page as it stands that could be fixed.
My website is in the middle of a revamp so it’s not a great example of my work but I am a professional web developer, honest, guv.
Professor, I’ve been using FeedDemon where I guess I can technically alter the browser width but according to my current settings, only the recently commented on and blog roll are off screen which I don’t think are particularly important.
On your previous setting, I found it rather narrow.
I hope this helps in some way.
OK, a test version up at: http://www.retrorocketdesign.com/jq/.
Hmmm.. in retrospect the colour scheme is a bit “camo”. Oh, well. Easy enough to change.
I could probably do more if I could get at the underlying template. I’ve tried not to alter too much of the HTML, as I just grabbed it by saving from the web browser.
Forgot to mention, the template I’ve just whipped up has a flexible-width main column, so it should resize fairly smoothly.
Ideally, I’d do a style-switcher of some sort to select a high-contrast version for readers with visual disabilities.
I use an 800x 600 screen and the loss of the last few columns of text on the right hand side is a common problem. But it’s no big deal – the scroll bar still works – but Andrew’s suggestion seems a sensible compromise. But it’s much better loking now and the comments text box is much better behaved 🙂
John, you might like to have a look at this.