Upgrade to Pro — share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …

A Pixel is not a Pixel

marakana
April 13, 2012

A Pixel is not a Pixel

Check out the video of this talk here http://mrkn.co/1n9en

marakana

April 13, 2012
Tweet

More Decks by marakana

Other Decks in Programming

Transcript

  1. Example site • http://mobilism.nl/2012/ • A proper responsive site that

    you can use on any device • For most of the presentation I’m going to pretend it’s not mobile-optimised
  2. A pixel is not a pixel • Three kinds of

    pixels • Two viewports • Zooming • How to access all this with JavaScript • Media queries width and device-width • Meta viewport
  3. A pixel is not a pixel • CSS pixels •

    Density-independent pixels • Device pixels
  4. CSS pixels • CSS pixels are the ones we use

    in declarations such as width: 190px or padding-left: 20px • They are what we want • Their size may be increased or decreased, though
  5. Device pixels • Device pixels are the physical pixels on

    the device • They have a fixed size that depends on the device
  6. Device pixels <meta name=”viewport” content=”width = device-width”> • What is

    the device width? • The number of device pixels • So on the iPhone, your site is restricted to 320px
  7. Device pixels • But ... • Devices get higher and

    higher pixel densities • In theory this would mean that the meta viewport width also goes up • But that would break sites
  8. • Thus device vendors created density- independent pixels (dips) •

    They are another abstraction layer • The number of dips is equal to the number of CSS pixels that is optimal for viewing a website on the device at 100% zoom • For the iPhone that’s 320px Density-independent pixels
  9. <meta name=”viewport” content=”width = device-width”> • What is the device

    width? • The number of dips • So on the iPhone, your site is still restricted to 320px • even on a Retina display Density-independent pixels
  10. What kind of pixels? If a certain JavaScript property is

    expressed in pixels always ask yourself what kind of pixels. Usually it’s CSS pixels, especially for anything related to CSS Sometimes it’s device pixels or dips, for anything related to screen size
  11. Viewports • The viewport is the total amount of space

    available for CSS layouts • On the desktop it’s equal to the browser window • The <html> element has an implicit width: 100% and spans the entire viewport
  12. Viewports • On mobile it’s quite a bit more complicated

    • If the (narrow) browser window were to be the viewport, many sites would be squeezed to death • And mobile browsers must render all sites correctly, even if they haven’t been mobile- optimized
  13. Viewports • That’s why the mobile browser vendors have split

    the viewport into two: • The layout viewport, the viewport that CSS declarations such as padding-left: 34% use,
  14. Viewports • That’s why the mobile browser vendors have split

    the viewport into two: • The layout viewport, the viewport that CSS declarations such as padding-left: 34% use, • and the visual viewport, which is the part of the page the user is currently seeing • Both are measured in CSS pixels
  15. Viewports • Initially most browsers make the visual viewport equal

    to the layout viewport • by zooming the page out as much as possible
  16. Viewports • Initially most browsers make the visual viewport equal

    to the layout viewport • by zooming the page out as much as possible • Although the page is unreadable, the user can at least decide which part he’d like to concentrate on and zoom in on that part
  17. Zooming • Zooming on desktop and mobile are totally different

    • On desktop the viewport is narrowed, which causes elements with padding-left: 34% to be recalculated (though they should still take up the same ratio) • and elements with a width: 190px to become relatively wider
  18. Zooming • On mobile the visual viewport is decreased, so

    that the user sees less of the complete site
  19. Zooming • On the desktop the viewport becomes less wide

    and the CSS pixels become larger. • The same amount of device pixels now contain less CSS pixels, after all.
  20. Zooming • On mobile the visual viewport becomes less wide,

    but the layout viewport remains static. Thus CSS declarations are not re- computed. • The visual viewport now contains less CSS pixels.
  21. screen.width and screen.height • The width and height of the

    screen • In device pixels (or dips) • Totally useless. Don’t bother reading it out JavaScript properties
  22. document.documentElement.clientWidth and document.documentElement.clientHeight • The width and height of the

    layout viewport • In CSS pixels • Useful, though mostly because of media queries JavaScript properties
  23. window.innerWidth and window.innerHeight • The width and height of the

    visual viewport • In CSS pixels • Extremely important. It tells you how much the user is currently seeing JavaScript properties
  24. document.documentElement.offsetWidth and document.documentElement.offsetHeight • The width and height of the

    <html> element • In CSS pixels • Very occasionally useful JavaScript properties
  25. window.pageXOffset and window.pageYOffset • The current scrolling offset • In

    CSS pixels • Useful. Works just as on desktop JavaScript properties
  26. • System pioneered by Nokia and BlackBerry • Picked up

    by Apple • Android supports it only from 3 on • IE9 on Windows Phone does not support it • But otherwise browser compatibility is quite decent JavaScript properties
  27. document.documentElement.clientWidth / window.innerWidth • This gives the current zoom level

    • You’re not interested in the zoom level, though • You want to know how much the user is currently seeing • The visual viewport, in other words JavaScript properties
  28. Media queries • There are two important media queries: •

    width • device-width • width is the one you want
  29. Media queries • device-width gives the width of the device

    screen • in device pixels • Equal to screen.width
  30. Media queries • width gives the width of the viewport

    • in CSS pixels • (There are a few zooming problems on desktop, though) • Equal to document.documentElement.clientWidth
  31. Media queries • device-width gives the width of the device

    screen • in device pixels or dips • Equal to screen.width • On mobile the screen is far smaller than on desktop, but that doesn’t matter
  32. Media queries • width gives the width of the viewport

    • in CSS pixels • Equal to document.documentElement.clientWidth • On mobile this means the layout viewport
  33. Media queries • width is the media query you want

    • but at first sight it seems to be totally useless on mobile • Usually we don’t care about the width of the layout viewport • We need to treat one more element, though.
  34. Meta viewport <meta name=”viewport” content=”width = device-width”> • The meta

    viewport tag tells the browser to set the size of the layout viewport • You can give a pixel value • or device-width, which means the screen size in dips
  35. Meta viewport <meta name=”viewport” content=”width = device-width”> • There is

    little reason to use other values than device-width • And because you tell the layout viewport to become as wide as the device • the width media query now contains useful data
  36. Media queries • In theory the device-width and width media

    queries would now return the same values • but only when the zoom level is 100% • This is a frighteningly complicated area • Don’t go there • Use width
  37. Mobile versions • So the trick for creating a mobile

    version of a site • is using <meta name=”viewport” content=”width=device-width” /> • in combination with width media queries • You probably already knew that • but now you also understand why