W3C home > Mailing lists > Public > www-style@w3.org > February 2014

The "resolution" media query is a misnomer IMHO

From: Behrang Saeedzadeh <behrangsa@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2014 13:11:59 +1100
Message-ID: <CAERAJ+_k9PvVCHCjwPNG4oHofa2A-jtRMXm-MeovoNSgQBY3hw@mail.gmail.com>
To: W3C CSS Mailing List <www-style@w3.org>
Hi,

Traditionally "resolution" has referred to the size of a display in pixels.

For example WQHD is used to refer to a screen that its resolution is
2560x1440 (see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_resolution), no
matter if it is 24", 27", or 31".

In other words, traditionally, resolution did not take into account pixel
density of a screen.

However in CSS media queries, "resolution" is actually referring to the
pixel density of the device, no matter what its resolution is.

So, "resolution" in this context, looks like a misnomer and I believe it
should be deprecated in favor of a better name (e.g. "pixel-density").

What do you think?

Best regards,
Behrang Saeedzadeh
Received on Wednesday, 5 February 2014 02:12:28 UTC

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