Re: determining screen resolution over the web

Knute Johnson <eternal@knutejohnson.com> writes:


  Recently, I started to teach JavaScript. This means that I
  had to learn about ?Progressive Enhancement?. This means
  that I had to learn about CSS3 and HTML5. This means that I
  had to learn about ?Responsive Design?. So, I learnt that
  with Progressive Enhancement and Responsive Design, today,
  one uses CSS like

@media screen and (max-width:750px) and (min-width:500px)
{ a { width: 50%; }}
@media screen and (min-width:750px)
{ a { width: 25%; white-space: nowrap; }}

  to specify formatting for different screen sizes. If necessary,
  one also can write JavaScript like

if( window.matchMedia( 'only screen and (max-device-width: 450px)' ).matches )
....
else if
( window.matchMedia( 'only screen and (min-device-width: 481px) and (max-device-width: 1024px) and (orientation: portrait)').matches )...

  . The old style might have been to access
  window.screen.width, window.screen.height,
  window.screen.availWidth, window.screen.availHeight,
  window.screen.colorDepth, and window.screen.pixelDepth in
  JavaScript, ... no, actually, the old style is browser
  sniffing and then loading pages from different servers, like
  a special server for a ?mobile version? of a site.

  Actually, JavaScript as a language has nothing to do with
  Browsers or HMTL, but students of a JavaScript course expect
  you to also talk about JavaScript in the Browser. So, I also
  talk about when it's better to do something using CSS than
  with JavaScript. With Progressive Enhancement, I think,
  one tries to do as much Responsive Design in CSS and only
  resorts to JavaScript where CSS cannot help.

  So, you are right mentioning CSS.

  I have devised a new rule for easy pronunciation: Use the
  first and last letter with an ?i? in between: So ?CSS?
  can be pronounced ?cis?, ?PDF? ?pif?, ?HTML? ?hil?, ?XHMTL?
  ?xil?, ?XML? ?egg smell? (this is a special-case rule in
  my pronunciation system that I had not mentioned before
  for the sake of simplification). ?Java? is usually not
  pronounced ?jia?, because ?Java? already can be pronounced
  easily as it is, so the rule does not apply.