[whatwg] RWD Heaven: if browsers reported device capabilities in a request header

[Ashley Sheridan]

On Mon, 2012-02-06 at 13:58 -0500, Boris Zbarsky wrote:

> On 2/6/12 1:55 PM, Irakli Nadareishvili wrote:
> > Many thanks to everybody who has responded and for a lively and a productive discussion!
> >
> > Quick clarification: the proposal is to include *device* capabilities in the HTTP headers, so when we say "screen width and height" we mean device screen width and height which is constant
> 
> Again, it's not constant in the terms that the page sees, which are CSS 
> pixels, not device pixels.
> 
> -Boris


I think the idea of some device capabilities is useful, like the
multi-touch capability of certain devices browsers (i.e. iPad, Firefox4
+, etc) but the ways in which code gets written to take advantage of
these very separate devices it isn't that much of a leap to sniff the
capabilities and use some clever CSS/Javascript to tailor the content
appearance and behaviour to suit the environment it's used in.

I agree with others on the list who've said that sending across
resolution (of any kind, be it actual, available or other) is the wrong
approach, and it will lead to browsers intentionally sending the wrong
information just to get the content they think they want.

-- 
Thanks,
Ash
http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk