Shozam Community

With the proliferation of larger and larger, wider flat screen monitors, has there been any thought of increasing the format of Shozam to fill larger screens? I had an opportunity to be using a college computer lab and found that Shozam comes up a little short on the new screens.

 Hey Ted,

Been a while since we've seen you in here. I don't think any plans for increasing Shozam for larger resolution. My analytics on my website (quite thorough analytics) still are showing that 94% of my visitors (with up to about 300 a day) are still using 1024x768 resolution. Only 2% are using anything higher and the rest are using 800x600. It's been like that for months and haven't seen any big trend to go to higher resolutions. So it looks like 1024x768 is still the popular resolution. 

Excuse me, can you kindly explain to me, how can I use 1024x768 resolution in Shozam, in all themes maximum picture size is 753px on long side in large position (for example http://www.timograf.ru/8/lg/9020.htm) . And it's not good for foto. Maybe most of people use 800x600 resolution, but it's not my clients)))

Timur

P.S. Sorry for my english, i'am from Russia. :)

p.p.s. By the way, there is some problem with russian letters in Shozam, but is' not a big problem.

Demurg, the images generated by Shozam are scaled so they fit within fixed sizes, to accommodate (and maximize) the layout on a 800x600 screen. This is currently not an adjustable parameter.

 Ya know...I think it may be time for Shozam to grow out to support 1024 x 768.  The world is moving.

 I've been looking at different software these days.  Right now the main thing that is holding me back is the rendering with some of them.

 I fully support your request for flexibility of image size.  I would like to be able to display images of at least 1000 x 750 on my web site and the present fixed, restricted size is too small.  

I hear where you are coming from.

It used to be “common wisdom” from the Shozam design team that the vast majority of monitors were no larger than 800 x 600.  That may have been true 3 years ago.

A few months ago I finally switched from CRT to LCD for my photo editing -- getting a nice NEC 24” wide screen graphics monitor.  The resolution?  1920 x 1200.

Granted, that is an exception.  But I knew that I needed to see how things looked on “common” monitors so I hopped over to MicroCenter to find a cheapo.  For barely over $100 I found a 19” wide screen monitor with 1360 x 768 resolution.  But the kicker is that there were several monitors that were cheaper, but they all had HIGHER resolution!

Last week I finally got tired of peering into the small laptop screen at work so I dropped by BestBuy and picked an LG monitor (20” wide format”) for about $155.  Resolution:  1600 x 900.

This is where the market is going.  Relatively small laptop monitors are boasting higher resolution.  Looking at the smaller screens, you see 1366 x 768 (15.6”, 14”, & 13.3”) and 1280 x 800 (15.4”, 14.1”, & 12”).  Looking at BestBuy’s listing (sorted by cheapest first) you see monitors from 17W” up to 20W” with resolutions 1366 x 768, 1440 x 900, & 1600 x 900.

If Shozam wasn’t so easy to use, I would have abandoned it months ago.  As it is, I find that I use it some of the time, and build my own pages at other times.

1024 x 768 (which will fit nicely in any of the monitors I mentioned above) needs to be offered as well as 800 x 600.  Let the page designer make the decision on size.

I have about 10 websites online now (with Shozam galleries), and I've looked again at my analytics for resolutions used by people. With what I've found I have to agree that Shozam should move up a bit in resolution size. As an average people viewing the galleries I've built fall into the following resolution sizes:

1024x768   52%

1280x800   13%

1280x1024  9%

800x600      4.5%

Other resolutions come in around 1-2%

This appears to be about standard for all the galleries give or take 2-4%.

At least to me it appears that the 800x600 resolution is definitely becoming outdated. Just my thought.

These statistics certainly won't make me quit using Shozam. The sheer number of positive comments I've received about the galleries far outweigh any drawbacks.

 We hear you and agree that the balance has shifted; we will have more to announce this fall.

My 2 cents.

Don't confuse screen resolution with browser sizing.  Many users have a large screen resolution and will open multiple browser windows on their desktops.  Then, they resize the windows to 800 x 600 or whatever.

Also, some users will increase their font size in the browser.  I do that frequently using MouseZoom in Firefox.

Below are some links for interesting reading if you want.

http://www.webmasterworld.com/html/3598539.htm

http://www.zachstronaut.com/posts/2009/02/02/analytics-browser-window-size.html

Here is a tip to resize your browser window to the size you want:

http://www.petefreitag.com/item/633.cfm

Cowboy

Cowboy:

Don't confuse screen resolution with browser sizing. 

This is true, but 800 x 600 target resolution is way behind the power curve these days.  Some (Many? All?) Adobe products will not install unless a resolution of at least 1024 x 768 is detected.  I purchased a netbook a few months ago that has a 1024 x 600 display resolution, though it will operate a "sliding window" over a logical 1024 x 768 field -- using that logical field is the only way I could install some apps.

Even taking into account browser borders and sliders, there are a couple hundred more usable pixels across a 1024 screen compared to an 800.  I'm in the process up updating web pages on my sites.  I've used tables on many of them and in the past set them to 95% width.  With wide screen monitors, some of them look pretty funky.  I now set the width of the table to 975 pixels and things look fine.

Time to move Shozam up.

 Larry, screens have moved up in resolution and size and also Internet connections have generally gotten speedier. Conditions are set for galleries to have larger image sizes. We are currently working on a number of different solutions to this so Shozam galleries will showcase larger images.

On July 3, 2009:

Razvan Neagu:

 We hear you and agree that the balance has shifted; we will have more to announce this fall.

Status? 

 Larry, we are just a few weeks away now from an announcement. We appreciate your patience.