question about full width header

if i want to make a banner with the links under it that takes up the entire pages width how wide should i make it? i dont want there to be empty or smooshed space on other dimensions. thanks

how about width=100%? It really depends on what you're trying to do. If youre just filling it with a color, then do width=100%. If you have content you still want aligned, make the content a separate div and overlay it on the header banner.

its an image. I set it to 780 like another topic i had but there is still some space when set 800 by 600

Yeah, there should be 20 left. You could centre the header and set a background image to fill any space left whatever size the site is viewed in.

Yeah there is 20 left but even with the scroll bar it's still got space on both sides.

you have to take into account that it may look okay in 800x600 when you set it to 100% width, because it's only stretching by a small amount. But when someone is viewing in a higher resolution, it will look rediculous because it will be stretched so much horisontally, but stay the same vertically.

My personal preference is to put a <800 transparent image in the header, then use a right aligned background image in the header div, and no width property, since a div with no width will span the width of the browser (taking margins into consideration, of course).

The header div has a background color and the background image fades to that color on the left edge.

The overall result is a header that spans the width of the browser, no matter how large, and it doesn't get terribly boring because of the right-aligned background image. For an example, check out http://www.kgreene.com/

View it at 1600x1200 (or whatever your highest resolution is) then view it at 800x600.