I was all about my new widescreen monitor when I first got it. Had more screen room for multiple windows and applications so I do not have keep switching between them, and is great for WoW!!! Also great for doing lines of coding!!
BUT!
Last night I really got into web designing and started on my friend's racing web page. All is fine, just gotta finish it up tonight and throw in some pizazz.
I come into work today to see how it looks on a different 'puter, and it looks like CRAP! I did take the monitor size into consideration when making the web page, so I did a few things to it that I normally would not. Sorta did the layout backwards, reminding myself of the extra spaces on the sides.
SO unhappy now... debating on getting another monitor that is not widescreen and have em sitting side by side on my desk. It's going to look ghetto

Oh well...anyone else disappointed or thought a widescreen monitor would be better than it is? I'm not regretting that I got it, cuz it's great for everything else. Just frustrated...

/end rant

Yet another reason to not go wide.

I love mine, and I do web dev too. What didn't turn out the way you wanted? I mean, I do most of my sites assuming a 1024x768 resolution, so if you sized your layout based on the appropriate screen rez, the only difference would be that it wouldn't fill your full widescreen when previewed in the web browser, but it would fill the screen on one set to that resolution.

The other thing I do is set my browser window to be 1024 pixels wide within my widescreen, so that when I'm previewing pages, I'm seeing what a standard monitor would see.

Pixels are pixels, even on a widescreen - it's just that our widescreens have more pixels across than most monitors. So just shrink the windows of what you're working on to match the size you're going for. I rarely have programs in full screen mode anyway, as I like to use the screen real estate of the widescreen to have multiple apps open.

Is this making any sense? LOL I feel like I can't explain what I mean Maybe post a link to the page that doesn't look right?

Oh, and I'm on a 24" widescreen.

Yeah, both laptops have widescreens and not crazy about them. You really don't get a eye for what it'll look like on normal monitor.

Try busting down your widescreen to lower rez and code to fit that, and see how it fares.

Nobody panic or faint, but I still run 800x600 rez and code/dev with that. Even play UO at that rez, so things are nice and visiable. 800x600 on 21 inch flat panel.

Definitely going to try that. I have yet to mess around with my resolutions a whole lot on this thing. Still in awe of it. Mind you, my previous monitor was a 7 yr old CRT and this is my first LCD LOL!!!!!!!!

Mo' money...mo' problems I suppose

Ain't that the truth!!!!

I run my widescreen at 1600 pixels wide, so when I work in Photoshop I set PS to take up about 70% of the screen. That's around 1024 pixels, ballpark.

I only have a 19" widescreen...what would u recommend I set my resolution to?

I dont have a widescreen monitor, but can you set a non widescreen resolution like 1024x768 or 1280x1024? You might get the black lines on the side of your screen, just set it for when your doing your business.

Or just thinking, set the resolution according to how big you want the program window to be, (dont do it full screen) then when you set your resolution back up to a big widescreen one, that window will have stayed the same size.

You're still going for the lowest common denominator resolution of the assumed audience of the web sites you're building. These days, most designers design for 1024x768 (meaning, a layout sized at something like 1000 pixels wide or so in Photoshop or whatever graphics program you use). The ultra-conservative designer would shoot for those viewing the page at 800x600, so a layout around 780 pixels wide.

So - you want your web page layout to be that size. Doesn't mean your monitor has to be that size. Why have the widescreen if you don't get to take advantage of all that extra space?!

So I set my Photoshop window itself to take up about 70% of the width of the screen. (My resolution on my monitor is set at 1600 wide). You'll want to check and see what your rez is set at, and assume that your graphics program window should be about 70% of that. You're probably running at 1280x1024 on a 19" widescreen - maybe even higher. So you'll want your Photoshop window to be about 900 pixels wide. I use the rulers in the program to guesstimate the width of the window.

You can do the same with your web browser window to preview your designs as you go. If you set them to be about 1024 pixels wide, you'll see about what your clients will see (without having to keep changing resolutions on your monitor).