Test Your Website with Different Browser Sizes

SUMMARY: Webmasters - see how sites will appear under various browsing scenarios with the "Resolution Test" plug-in.

 

When developing a website, it may prove useful to see how it appears with different browser sizes to help ensure it looks OK with users who have a variety of different monitor resolutions. While earlier web sites had to perform well in 640x480 and 800x600 resolutions, most people now have monitors supporting 1024x768 or greater, though they may not all have their browsers maximized.

To test for different scenarios inside Google Chrome you can install the "Resolution Test" extension. This lets you resize the browser window to one of several 'normal' resolutions such as 1024x768 or 1280x800, or you can resize to a custom resolution. Plus, if you need to test a website under a variety of resolutions it can open multiple Chrome windows.

1. From Google Chrome, visit the "Resolution Test" page.

2. Click the "Install" button.

3. Click "Install" in the "Confirm Installation" dialog box when prompted.

Confirming installing the "Resolution Test" extension in Google Chrome

After installing "Resolution Test", clicking the new resolution icon to the right of the address bar allows you to resize the browser window. Or, open multiple browser windows by checking the desired resolutions and clicking "View all selected". You can also turn on Google Browser Size from Google Labs.