CSS WG Blog – Updated CR of Media Queries L4 and WD of Media Queries L5

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Updated CR of Media Queries L4 and WD of Media Queries L5

By Florian Rivoal July 22, 2020 (Permalink)
Categories: publications

The CSS WG has published an updated Candidate Recommendation and invites implementations of Media Queries Level 4. It has also published an updated Working Draft of Media Queries Level 5.

Media Queries allow authors to test and query values or features of the user agent or display device, independent of the document being rendered. They are used in the CSS @media rule to conditionally apply styles to a document, and in various other contexts and languages, such as HTML and JavaScript.

Level 4 brings significant improvements to the syntax, and refocuses Media Queries away from categorizing devices into exclusive media types, and instead introduces a broad range of media features, to enable authors to inquire about various aspects of the environment the web page is being rendered into. This include the viewport’s geometry, information about the color capabilities, the input devices, and a few more things.

This new Candidate Recommendation is a fairly minor update from the previous one. The main changes are documented in the Changes section. A Disposition of Comments is available.

Level 4 is considered fairly stable at this point, with no known issue. The CSS Working Group encourage User Agents to continue implementing it, and is looking for feedback from these implementers and early users of its features.

Level 5 builds upon this foundation, adding a few more media features to look into things like the dynamic range of the display, whether the rendering environment is capable of running scripts, or whether the content is rendered on an opaque or transparent screen. It also explores a few new areas:

enabling authors to create custom media queries
media features related to devices with a dedicated video rendering plane
a set of media features focused not so much of the capabilities of the device, but rather on the preferences of the user.

Details of changes since the previous Working Drafts, as well as between level 4 and 5 are listed in the Changes section.

The features introduced Level 5 are much more experimental, and the CSS Working Group encourages broad discussion of their benefits and downsides. Participation in the discussion of existing unresolved issues is most welcome.

Please send feedback on either documents by filing an issue in GitHub, including [mediaqueries-4] or [mediaqueries-5] in the title of the issue as appropriate.

Alternatively, you may also send a mail to the (archived) public mailing list www-style@w3.org with the spec code ([mediaqueries-4] or [mediaqueries-4]) and your comment topic in the subject line.

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