[whatwg] So if media-queries aren't for determining the media to be used what are they for?

Thu May 17 06:37:13 PDT 2012

On Thu, 17 May 2012 14:16:24 +0100, Matthew Wilcox  
<mail at matthewwilcox.com> wrote:

> That particular solution is, to my mind, the most flexible and useful
> implementation I've seen, because it's really about breakpoint
> management and abstraction - which is what all responsive elements
> need in order to work together well and be future-friendly.
>
> It does, no doubt, have some technical considerations and implications
> I'm not aware of. I would love to see this worked on more, I don't
> think there's much more I can add to it from my authors perspective,
> it needs work from an implementor perspective. But as a pattern, it
> has a lot of plus points going for it.

I'm trying to figure out how it's going to work in other situations than  
the happy case.

What if you want to provide copy&pasteable code snippet with an adaptive  
image? (like W3C Validator badges)

What if you're creating WYSIWYG editor for CMSes and want to have button  
for inserting adaptive images, but have no access to <head>?

What if you want to insert a single image with custom/unique breakpoints  
(say an infographic prepared by an agency which used different  
breakpoints) on a website that already has its own breakpoints defined?

I see no nice solution for case when authors put <meta breakpoint> in  
<body> — it'd either have re-evaluate and potentially reload images  
(wasted requests) or ignore the meta (annoying gotcha when HTML5 parser  
unexpectedly closes <head> or when people want to work around lack of  
access to the <head>)

How do you work with URLs you have no control over? e.g. you'd have to  
name your breakpoints "40" and "80" to have adaptive size of gravatar.com  
URLs.

What do you do when you have only two breakpoints for sidebar, but more  
for the main content? (mostly fixed-width sidebar with fluid main column)  
or if your page header adapts to portrait orientation, but images in main  
content only adapt to width?

-- 
regards, Kornel Lesiński