Re: [mediaqueries4] pointer: coarse and pannable, zoomable viewports

On Dec 12, 2012, at 10:26 AM, "Tab Atkins Jr." <jackalmage@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Is such a UA expected to match 'pointer: fine' when zoomed in, and
>> 'pointer: coarse' otherwise? I hope not; I'm not enthusiastic about
>> triggering layout on zoom. If such a UA never matches 'pointer: fine'
>> but only 'pointer: coarse', it's more likely that page authors will use
>> this MQ to make content that behaves poorly when the user is zoomed in.
> 
> It sounds like you're saying "damned if you do, damned if you don't".  ^_^

It does sound like it, if triggering layout on zoom is such a bad thing. 

> I don't really understand this objection, though.  Can you elaborate
> with a more specific example?  In general, page authors should respond
> to this MQ by making touch targets larger.  How does this make a
> poorly-behaved page upon zooming, unless the page was badly-designed
> to begin with?

Someone might consider it badly designed, if the touch targets are enormous even when zoomed in to a single column, and someone might consider the same page well designed when viewed at the default zoom. I think it might be a good thing to have the touch targets be finger sized at any zoom. 

Regardless of whether you agree with that, I think having a unit that was equal to pointer discernment size (or estimated pointer discernment size, in the case of fingers) would be better than having a media query for that. Then I could do something like this for a link: 'padding: 0.3pointer-discernment-unit 0.5em; min-width: 1pointer-discernment-unit;' (unit name subject to change). For a mouse, the unit would be equal to 1px.

Received on Wednesday, 12 December 2012 18:54:53 UTC