Re: [css3-images][css4-images] Replace 'dppx' with 'x'?

On Thu, 24 May 2012 23:41:53 +0200, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com>  
wrote:

> There's been a decent bit of feedback recently about the 'dppx'
> resolution unit, since Responsive Images have become popular over in
> HTML.  The feedback has pretty much all been negative about the name,
> though.  It seems to be generally considered to be a difficult name to
> read and even write (with a lot of 'ddpx' typos, even from people here
> in the WG).
>
> Apple's image-set() proposal, and HTML's new <img srcset> proposal,
> both use a simple 'x' unit to denote the same thing.  What do we think
> about doing the same thing?
>
> I see two ways this could happen:
>
> 1. We modify the Images 3 CR.  In the absence of a CR errata
> mechanism, this means another Last Call, though we could certainly
> annotate the draft to make it clear that it's not a big deal, or
> simply keep it low-key like we did with B&B recently.
>
> 2. We wait for Images 4 and add it, deprecating dppx along the way.
> We can either invoke an explicit aliasing mechanism here, or just
> define it identically and say that authors must not use dppx.
>
> Thoughts?

I am not categorically opposed to x, but I like dppx a lot more, as
it matches the dp[*] pattern established by dpi and dpcm.

Also, note that srcset with x is a slightly distinct thing from media
queries with dppx, even if closely related. It does not denote a property
of the media you're on, but of the resource you're loading. Typically you
want them to match, but they are still referring to (subtly) different
things.

We should avoid aliasing as much as possible. dppx hasn't been deployed
by anybody as far as I know, so if we rename, we shouldn't bother with an  
alias.

I'd prefer we kept dppx, but if we're going to change, I'd like this change
to happen soon, as it will be more painful to do once some implementation
have shipped dppx and some content has been written for it. How soon? Today
was when I planned to merge our the task adding dppx support into Opera's  
core
mainline.

  - Florian

Received on Friday, 25 May 2012 08:21:09 UTC