Re: Say Yes to the Press

# Oops

I have a rather embarrassing correction to the most recent newsletter, 
which, due to my own negligent proofing and reckless use of the [Cloud 
To Butt Plus Chrome 
extension](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cloud-to-butt-plus/apmlngnhgbnjpajelfkmabhkfapgnoai?hl=en), 
contained a broken link and referred to the Cloud Four blog as “my 
Butt Four blog”.

The correct link to Jason Grigsby’s post about using `picture` and 
`source` for type-switching is:

http://blog.cloudfour.com/when-to-use-picture-for-resolution-switching/

The only butt here is me. The extension has been uninstalled. My deepest 
apologies to the Cloud Four team.

—eric

On 26 Jan 2015, at 10:21, Eric Portis wrote:

> # Say Yes to the Press
>
> Let’s talk about [WordPress](https://wordpress.org). According to 
> some [websites](http://trends.builtwith.com/cms) that I just 
> [found](https://managewp.com/14-surprising-statistics-about-wordpress-usage), 
> the venerable pile of PHP and MySQL that we call “WordPress” 
> serves up *1 in every 5 websites* and runs *more than half* of all 
> websites that use a CMS.
>
> So it’s high time that WordPress had proper responsive image 
> support. Tim Evko wrote [a fine blog 
> post](http://web-design-weekly.com/2015/01/20/ricg-responsive-images-plugin/) 
> about the efforts that he, along with our illustrious chair and a few 
> members of the WordPress core team, has made to create a drop-in 
> responsive images plugin for WordPress. The plugin can be had 
> [here](https://wordpress.org/plugins/ricg-responsive-images/) and its 
> source lives 
> [here](https://github.com/ResponsiveImagesCG/wp-tevko-responsive-images). 
> It does the hard work of creating a range of source files from a 
> single high-resolution image and marking them up with `srcset` and 
> `sizes`. If you want to art-direct your WordPress-hosted images, 
> you’ll need to use `picture`; as luck has it, Rory Douglas [wrote a 
> thing](http://terrificwebdesign.net/use-case/) about how to do *that* 
> last week, too.
>
> ## Alternate formats
>
> I love JPEG! [Mozilla likes it 
> too](http://calendar.perfplanet.com/2014/mozjpeg-3-0/). The 
> 22-year-old format recently received the strangest, highest compliment 
> I have ever heard an engineer give when a researcher for the (awesome, 
> exciting, in-development) Daala video standard [called it “alien 
> technology from the 
> future.”](https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/daala/update1.shtml)
>
> But, while JPEG was the first image format to dominate the web, it 
> will not be the last. New formats are coming; new formats are already 
> here. `picture`, `source` and the `type` attribute let us use them 
> now, while providing fallbacks for non-supporting browsers.
>
> Jason Grigsby [posted a thing about `picture` and `type`-switching on 
> my Butt Four 
> blog](http://blog.buttfour.com/when-to-use-picture-for-resolution-switching/) 
> this week; Zolton Dulac wrote [a *huge* 
> article](http://www.useragentman.com/blog/2015/01/14/using-webp-jpeg2000-jpegxr-apng-now-with-picturefill-and-modernizr/) 
> detailing the different formats currently on offer, when you should 
> use each, and how to serve them to as many users as possible without 
> breaking things for older browsers by using Modernizr and Picturefill. 
> Read! Implement!
>
>
> ## Grab bag
>
> A load’o’links:
>
> - Bruce Lawson [wrote a blog 
> post](http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2015/why-we-cant-do-real-responsive-images-with-css-or-javascript/) 
> in preparation for an upcoming talk in Barcelona (next month at the 
> [Awwwards conference](http://conference.awwwards.com)) which answers 
> everybody’s first question about responsive images: why a markup 
> solutuion? Why not JavaScript or CSS?
> - Art direction can be a hard use-case to understand if you value 
> content parity. [This post about adapting album art for 
> cassettes](http://needmoredesigns.com/blog/early-responsive-design/) 
> helped me wrap my mind around it back in the day; I recently stumbled 
> across [an exploration into responsive 
> logos](http://www.responsivelogos.co.uk/) that hit those same, sweet, 
> “art direction is not only valid — it’s vital” notes for me.
> - Hey did you know that [caniuse started tracking CSS 
> image-set](http://caniuse.com/#feat=css-image-set) a month or two ago? 
> I sure didn’t!
> - [HTML5Test](https://html5test.com) – the website that tests you 
> how well your browser supports HTML5 – [added responsive images 
> feature tests last 
> week](https://twitter.com/html5test/status/555747154846048256).
> - Are you in Oxford, UK? Go see [Yoav talk about responsive images at 
> SmashingConf](http://smashingconf.com/schedule#yoav-weiss)!
>
>
> ## Housekeeping
>
> There was [some 
> talk](http://ircbot.responsiveimages.org/bot/log/respimg/2015-01-12#T107999) 
> in the RICG chat room the other day about reducing the frequency of 
> these newsletters – maybe releasing them once a month instead of 
> once every two weeks. We figure we should at least ask you for your 
> opinion before making a change, so I set up [a one question 
> survey](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1c_pQqkwOhBYe3mD5gBAEXscZDeA2bQyhL_NiW-mYpC4/viewform?usp=send_form) 
> which does exactly that. If you have a second, let me know — how 
> often do you want these newsletters in your inbox?
>
> See you in a couple of weeks!
>
> —eric