Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

CSS

Posted by Travis Bouck
Travis Bouck
5,752 Points

Responsive web design - how do you know how many pixels

Hi - quick question. For determining breakpoints how do you know how many pixels the screen is at when you are making it narrower and wider? Is this just an estimation or is this information available on the browser window (I am using Chrome). Just curious if there is a better way than trial and error...

3 Answers

James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points
James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points

The easiest way to find break points is to use http://responsivepx.com/ You can also use the Window Resizer extension.

When testing your media queries use responsinator.

If you want to measure the size of an element in pixels use the MeasureIt! extension

Kelly Dyson
Kelly Dyson
91 Points
Kelly Dyson
Kelly Dyson
91 Points

There's probably a better way of doing this, but if I have to find out the width of the browser, I select a full width element in the html in inspector (the body tage for example). Chrome highlights the element and shows a little yellow tooltip that shows the width and height in pixels. Or select the body tag and check the width on the 'computed styles' in inspector.

Andrew Whitfield
Andrew Whitfield
5,239 Points
Andrew Whitfield
Andrew Whitfield
5,239 Points

If you use Firefox, you can use the Firebug and Web Developer tools. They are more developer-friendly than Chrome's Tools or plugins.

One such option in the Web Developer Add-on by Chris Pederick is the Display Ruler (American Spelling) option. With that, you can get the pixel dimensions of an existing object or highlight a region on the screen to get its offset and dimensions.