[whatwg] Features for responsive Web design

[Matthew Wilcox]

Note that this is also my major criticism of <picture> and the reason
why I would not use it in the current CG state - and why I've been
looking into <meta> variables as a method of abstracting the response
points away from the responding element.

I think this is a very important consideration. Anything baking
response points directly into an element will be hell to work with in
any re-design.

-Matt

On 16 May 2012 13:58, Matthew Wilcox <mail at matthewwilcox.com> wrote:
> Also, srcset does not abstract the control points away from the image
> itself. I have already been over why this is a problem and
> future-unfriendly. Breakpoints are based on a when a *design* becomes
> visually broken, not on the width of a device. So, when a design
> changes, so will the response breakpoints, and that would mean having
> to revisit and edit every image that's had srcset applied - unless I
> am missing something (which given the last day or two, I may well be).
>
> -Matt
>
> On 16 May 2012 13:55, Matthew Wilcox <mail at matthewwilcox.com> wrote:
>> Chalk me up as another making that mistake. Properties on elements
>> usually describe a property of the element. Not a property of
>> something else (like the viewport).
>>
>> I'm happier than I was about srcset - but why does the spec assume
>> pixels? Or does it?
>>
>> Use case: design breakpoints can and often are based on non-pixel
>> units. em's, for example. As far as I can tell, srcset does not work
>> with units other than pixels, so how could it work reliably with
>> designs done in non-pixel units?
>>
>> -Matt
>>
>> On 16 May 2012 13:38, PJ McCormick <pj at mynameispj.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 5:25 AM, Henri Sivonen <hsivonen at iki.fi> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 2:46 PM, Jeremy Keith <jeremy at adactio.com> wrote:
>>>>> > You're right. I was thinking that the values (Nh Nw Nx) described the
>>>>> *image* but in fact they describe (in the case of Nh and Nw) the viewport
>>>>> and (in the case of Nx) the pixel density of the screen/device.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > I suspect I won't be the only one to make that mistake.
>>>>>
>>>>> Indeed. I made the same mistake initially. The what's currently in the
>>>>> spec is terribly counter-intuitive in this regard.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> I also made the same mistake, and it took combing through all of
>>> yesterday's and this morning's discussions on the topic for me to finally
>>> understand it properly. And I consider myself to be a fairly competent
>>> developer, not someone just starting out with HTML.
>>>
>>> Now that I do understand I'm honestly happier with @srcset as a concept,
>>> but my problems with the syntax itself still remain. In fact, they might be
>>> amplified. Surely we can refine this into a better, more easily understood
>>> syntax.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 5:25 AM, Henri Sivonen <hsivonen at iki.fi> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 2:46 PM, Jeremy Keith <jeremy at adactio.com> wrote:
>>>> > You're right. I was thinking that the values (Nh Nw Nx) described the
>>>> *image* but in fact they describe (in the case of Nh and Nw) the viewport
>>>> and (in the case of Nx) the pixel density of the screen/device.
>>>> >
>>>> > I suspect I won't be the only one to make that mistake.
>>>>
>>>> Indeed. I made the same mistake initially. The what's currently in the
>>>> spec is terribly counter-intuitive in this regard.
>>>>
>>>> > I can see now how it does handle the art-direction case as well. I think
>>>> it's a shame that it's a different syntax to media queries but on the plus
>>>> side, if it maps directly to imgset in CSS, that's good.
>>>>
>>>> It seems to me that Media Queries are appropriate for the
>>>> art-direction case and factors of the pixel dimensions of the image
>>>> referred to by src="" are appropriate for the pixel density case.
>>>>
>>>> I'm not convinced that it's a good idea to solve these two axes in the
>>>> same syntax or solution. It seems to me that srcset="" is bad for the
>>>> art-direction case and <picture> is bad for the pixel density case.
>>>>
>>>> (I think the concept of dpi isn't appropriate for either case, FWIW. I
>>>> think "the number of horizontal and vertical bitmap samples doubled
>>>> relative to the traditional src image" works much better conceptually
>>>> for Web authoring than making people do dpi math with an abstract
>>>> baseline of 96 dpi. Anecdotal observation of trying to get family
>>>> members to do dpi math for print publications suggests that it's hard
>>>> to get educated people do dpi math right even when an "inch" is a real
>>>> inch an not an abstraction.)
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Henri Sivonen
>>>> hsivonen at iki.fi
>>>> http://hsivonen.iki.fi/
>>>>