Re: Defining safe areas for media devices and set top boxes

On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 5:00 AM, João Eiras <joao-c-eiras@telecom.pt> wrote:

> First, there might be a background, if there is, whether it can be
> stretched, translated, or repeated is not something for the user agent to
> guess.
>

The user-agent doesn't have to guess, the 'background-repeat' property tells
it how to repeat the background.

When I mention content which might land in the safe area, I'm not
> specifically talking only about readable text, but elements in the document
> tree, in order to maintain document aesthetics, instead of showing some void
> stripes on the sides, again, like a header or a footer.
>
> If a unsafe-area media was detected, then the header and footer could be
> stretched a bit in order to maintin the same aesthetics.
>

Stretch how?

Playing video fullscreen would require stretching over the safe area to
> eliminate the content edges (there might be black stripes underneath, but
> that's another issue), and because video can be partially cropped
> practically always, as it is on regular TVs
>
> if you have a UI which  allows drag and drop you can move stuff near and
> over the edges, like in a regular computer (who'd know?).
>

That seems undesirable. If the user drags over content that might not be
visible, that content should be scrolled into view if possible, per standard
user interface conventions.

Expecting for user agents to magically apply some padding to the document,
> is exactly what is not wanted while not being straightforward, and painting
> the background is not an expected solution. Would actually be quite a
> cludge.
>

I'm not sure what you mean by "not an expected solution". Drawing the
background over the unsafe area seems elegant to me. It simply extends an
existing feature, with no new syntax, and works with existing pages. Using
'background-position' authors could explicitly place images in the unsafe
area by placing them outside the viewport; such images would not be visible
to normal users.

Can you give concrete examples of content authors want to place in the
unsafe area?

Rob
-- 
"Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for
they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures
every day to see if what Paul said was true." [Acts 17:11]