[whatwg] Features for responsive Web design

[Matthew Wilcox]

I think there's a fundamental mis-match in the mental model of how
authors work and what they want. I'm pretty sure we're all shooting
for the same "be more efficient" goal, but I think that here on the
mailing list that's being approached from an angle that has not
considered how authors actually want to do this.

We work with designs that re-arrange content and sometimes call for
different images of the same semantic meaning. That is *not* the same
use case as simply sending a different version of the same image.
Srcset only addresses that one type of use, and that is why authors
feel it's flawed. It doesn't do what we need, and never can because
srcset is based on the assumptin that a UA can somehow pick an
appropriate resource to load - when it can't possibly know about the
authors use of that resource at that time.

-Matt

On 15 May 2012 19:19, Matthew Wilcox <mail at matthewwilcox.com> wrote:
> Um, the fact of the matter is we don't want to ensure they have the
> same ratio. It is exactly why we want to swap images sometimes - the
> aspect ratio no longer fits the design being applied at the given
> breakpoint.
>
>
>
> On 15 May 2012 18:48, Jason Grigsby <jason at cloudfour.com> wrote:
>> On May 15, 2012, at 9:54 AM, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 6:42 PM, Jason Grigsby <jason at cloudfour.com> wrote:
>>>> Are you saying that all of the image source listed in srcset would have the same aspect ratio? In the example Hixie provided, face-icon.png is a different ratio.
>>>>
>>>> Another way to read this could be that you’re fine so long as your sources with different densities (e.g., 1x, 2x, etc) always have the same ratio. If so, I’m unclear on how that solves the problem when you have images that need different cropping like the Nokia example which is vertical in one case and horizontal in another.
>>>
>>> That's what I'm saying.  Authors *can* ensure that, within a
>>> particular breakpoint, their multi-res images all have the same ratio.
>>> It's a good idea, since the *intention* is that the multi-res
>>> versions are all exact same image, just at different resolutions.
>>>
>>> If you don't do that, you get unpredictable results, but you asked for that.
>>>
>>> If you *do* do that, then you know what your aspect ratio will be, and
>>> you can predict which breakpoint will be chosen and pair that with MQs
>>> to adjust the rest of your layout.
>>
>> Hmm… Doesn’t that then mean the solution to the use case is simply “don’t do it”? Or am I missing something?
>>
>> BTW, I know things are a little heated on irc right now so please read my questions as sincere attempts to understand how this would work and not as attempts to be obstinate. :-)
>>
>> -Jason