[css3-mediaqueries] Concern about bounds on min- and max- prefixes

While writing documentation for media queries support coming in  
Firefox 3.1, it was pointed out to me by a reviewer that there's a  
potential problem with the specification when it comes to using min-  
and max-prefixes to create media queries in which the two ranges need  
to abut one another.

For example:

<link rel=”stylesheet” media=”(max-device-aspect-ratio: 10/10)”  
href=”portrait.css”>
<link rel=”stylesheet” media=”(min-device-aspect-ratio: 11/10)”  
href=”landscape.css”>

In this case, a sheet of paper with a printable area of 2500/2400  
pixels would fall in between these two and neither style sheet would  
load.  There's no way to specify these ratios such that there aren't  
cases where neither style sheet might be used.

Someone might try to deal with this problem in this manner:

<link rel=”stylesheet” media=”(max-device-aspect-ratio: 1/1)”  
href=”portrait.css”>
<link rel=”stylesheet” media=”(min-device-aspect-ratio: 1/1)”  
href=”landscape.css”>

But now you have the problem of what to do if the device has a square  
aspect ratio (1/1).  I presume the first sheet should be used;  
however, this might not be the intended effect.

Eric Shepherd
Developer Documentation Lead
Mozilla Corporation
Blog: http://www.bitstampede.com

Received on Tuesday, 14 October 2008 19:51:27 UTC