Re: ACTION-994: Some evidence of CSS MQ in the wild

 > Yes, and this is why I argue that a best practice must be
 > based on techniques that
 > a) are sufficiently widely available;
 > b) demonstrably "work", i.e. sufficiently solid experience
 > about them, and how and when to best apply them is
 > available;
 > (b) being more important than (a).

They've been around a long time, they are not very widely supported or 
used. There's no convenient way of assessing whether a user agent 
supports it or not, so you have to have an alternative strategy that in 
all likelihood covers all the options anyway.

The idea of CSS media queries seems to fall into a rather poorly 
evidenced class "declarative client side adaptation" which needs to be 
compared with successful techniques like using Javascript to assess the 
self same things and act accordingly. How many things can you do in a 
reasonably functional CSS Media Queries enabled browser that you can not 
do in the same browser, and others besides, using script?

I think CSS Media Queries have been over taken by the tide of history 
and whether they were at one time a good idea or not, there is no need 
for them now.

Jo

On 10/07/2009 17:40, Eduardo Casais wrote:
>>> I think 3 million, but will get the figures next week.
> --
>> I'm not sure about the main use, but I was using Media
>> Queries long before the iPhone even existed,
> 
> That would make about 0.5% rate of utilization -- I gather 
> in the general Web where MAMA collects its data. This is
> not exactly impressive if MQ have been available long
> before the emergence of the iPhone, but perhaps this 
> just means that MQ are not very useful for desktops.
> 
>> I don't see how we can tell that a media query is 
>> designed to offer custom style sheets to iPhones rather
>> than any other phone or mobile device.
> 
> This is not exactly what I meant, rather I observed that
> many examples of CSS media queries seemed 
> primarily intended for the iPhone _at this point in time_
> (probably because of the popularity of the iPhone).
> 
>> it certainly doesn't require the viewport meta tag to be
>> useful.
> 
> Correct. 
> 
> Remember that the discussion started when someone
> suggested mentioning CSS MQ in "3.6.2 Use Client-side 
> Capability Detection for Dynamic Device State"
> 
> What I was hinting at was that for truly dynamic
> capability handling, CSS MQ are probably insufficient by 
> themselves and require other features (such as JavaScript,
> Viewport, etc). The only example given that actually deals
> with dynamic capability handling (screen orientation) must
> also rely upon viewport. Just an observation, not the final 
> word.
> 
>> I forgot about the issue of mobile phone makers
>> ramping up the pixel density
> 
> For quite some time now, far-eastern manufacturers 
> (Korea and Japan) have been shipping phones with
> subsantially higher pixel counts than the iPhone or
> anything available in European/USA markets. 480x854 
> seems to have become typical for DoCoMo and Softbank.
> 
>> Using actual screen width in cm/mm/inches would 
>> probably be better
> 
> I am not thrilled by this approach...
> 
>>> (On a side-note, I  disagree that Best Practices must 
>>> be derived from widely-used techniques.
> ....
>> Personally, I promote a way of creating mobile apps 
>> and services based on exploiting what works
> 
> Yes, and this is why I argue that a best practice must be
> based on techniques that
> a) are sufficiently widely available;
> b) demonstrably "work", i.e. sufficiently solid experience
> about them, and how and when to best apply them is
> available;
> (b) being more important than (a).
> 
> E.Casais
> 
> 
>       
> 
> 

Received on Friday, 10 July 2009 22:53:00 UTC