Re: [css3-values] Physical length units

On 2/19/12 11:42 AM, Felix Miata wrote:
> On 2012/02/19 09:15 (GMT-0800) Tab Atkins Jr. composed:
>
>> It's largely people using the pt unit for fonts, but the other
>> units show up at times, and people expect them to have a dependable
>> ratio with px.
>
> Others expect measuring units defined centuries ago to retain the same 
> meaning in novel contexts as they do in traditional contexts. cf. the 
> puter world's hijacking of decimal multiples MB, KB, GB, etc. 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix

Is there any pushback with the truemm concept? I've seen this thread pop 
up for awhile [years?] now.
RoC put out a definition, it lacks any handling for browser zoom (if the 
browser is zoomed in 2x, is it still 1mm?):
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2010Jan/0343.html

I got a lot of pushback from Mozilla when I asked for pixel ratio to be 
exposed in 2010/2011. Their entire model, up to the point they 
introduced media queries, is built around not exposing this kind of 
information. Once they introduced media queries, it simply became 
obfuscated instead of obstructed. Mozilla was the only browser to take 
such a rigid position, and it has loosened.

Are there any other use cases than the simple "put a ruler on the 
screen" demo? I've used that one, cause I've worked with drawing apps. 
If that is the only use case -- is simply exposing this information in 
window.screen sufficient? I'm fine with css units too, but my uses are 
going to be via scripting.

All the back and forth on this topic really just relates to whether or 
not Mozilla is willing to add information to the window.screen object. 
For a few years, that's been an absolute no. I don't want to keep 
carrying that fight. I think they're wrong, they think they're right.

Microsoft updated window.screen awhile ago; webkit dev list gave the 
green light on it last year, but no patches have surfaced yet.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms535868(v=vs.85).aspx


-Charles

Received on Sunday, 19 February 2012 20:19:01 UTC