GOODBYE TO THE FIXED GRID

Buzzword Books editor, D. S. Mills, explains our latest revamp:

If you are familiar with the endless tweaking rather grandly called website design, you'll understand our frustration. As one of the least significant outlet for eBooks known, we contented ourselves for years with a Liquid Layout. This now obsolete system adjusts for screen size but falls apart badly on the laptop.
    We then went to a Fixed Grid - a vast improvement in layout stability - a series of set columns that accepts almost any configuration. This worked marvellously on computers and well on pad-sized devices but couldn't cope with mobile display.
    As you know, the 'Hand Held Device' is mostly held in profile. Why? It fits the hand that way and the landscape mode negates control areas that appear in profile.
    Although Google now degrades websites that stick to Fixed Grids, many still persist. If your site has thousands of pages and products, it is no small matter to find an alternative that scales down to the typical mobile screen - then to go through the endless process of adjusting everything to conform.

ENTER THE FLEXIBLE GRID
For those not familiar with mark-up, this is a structure that preserves the virtues of the Fixed Grid's stability with a series of media commands and other CSS controls that allow the components to progressively decrease in size or reposition to suit the screen size. As we now mostly view the internet on mobiles, the mantra is to design first for the mobile and adjust from there. The FG permits a simple mobile view that progressively reforms to suit pad and computer screens. Even so, design limitations tend to appear on 24' monitors. (Yes, you measure your monitor size diagonally.)
    So Buzzword has now switched to a simple FG layout. It's not pretty but at least displays properly on the gismo the world worships - dubbed by one wit the Weapon of Mass Distraction. In the process, we have simplified the site and placed the same content on fewer pages. To simplify further, we have deleted our used book section. It may later appear on our sister site, Bookbooster, which is next in line for a revamp.
    Of course, no prototype is perfect. So, if you have problems with our new format, let us know.