Media Queries 5

[lukewarlow]

Description

Following on from Interop 2023s Media Queries 4 focus area, it would be good for Media Queries 5 to be focussed on next.

Specification

https://drafts.csswg.org/mediaqueries-5/

Open Issues

There are a few but here's a sample:

w3c/csswg-drafts#8651 - proposal for new media query.

w3c/csswg-drafts#7406 - proposal for another new media query.

w3c/csswg-drafts#8621 - Issue requesting clarification of scripting: initial-only but this has been answered and is now interopable across browsers.

w3c/csswg-drafts#8653 - Issue about CSP and the scripting feature (this feature is implemented across the board now)

Tests

https://wpt.fyi/results/css/mediaqueries

Current Implementations

• Blink
• Gecko
• WebKit

Standards Positions

mozilla/standards-positions#851 - Firefox prefers-reduced-transparency request

mozilla/standards-positions#393 - Firefox MQ5 (motion, color-scheme, and contrast)

WebKit/standards-positions#145 - Safari prefers-reduced-transparency request

WebKit/standards-positions#219 - Safari prefers-reduced-data

Browser bug reports

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1462210 - inverted-colors request

Developer discussions

No response

Polls & Surveys

https://2023.stateofcss.com/en-US/features/accessibility/

Existing Usage

An example of some of the features:

https://chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/3868

https://chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/3870

https://chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/3869

Workarounds

In many cases the "workaround" is to simply ignore the user preference.

Accessibility Impact

Many of these features are designed to give a more accessible web experience based on users preferences or device capabilities.

Privacy Impact

Due to the nature of what they are some of the features in Media Queries Level 5 expose information to sites that aren't previously exposed, these imo are balanced against the accessibility benefits.

Other

Media Query Level 5 is quite a wide set of features and I understand that some might be less achievable than others (if for example people are against a certain media query I think just discount that from interop rather than discounting all of them)

See #421 for a specific request on custom media queries.

Also as stated here MQ5 doesn't currently meet requirements, however a large number of the media queries are already implemented and web exposed in at least some browsers (inverted-colors for example has been in Safari for years) so while the whole spec might not be ready it would be good to achieve interop for those that area already partially supported.

[gsnedders]

Also as stated #421 (comment) MQ5 doesn't currently meet requirements, however a large number of the media queries are already implemented and web exposed in at least some browsers (inverted-colors for example has been in Safari for years) so while the whole spec might not be ready it would be good to achieve interop for those that area already partially supported.

That isn't what our policy is, I just mixed things up. Sorry!

[jensimmons]

It might be better to submit specific proposals for the parts of the Media Queries 5 specification that are ready for implementation, since much of it is not.

There are privacy concerns about fingerprinting risks for many of the features in Media Queries 5 — expressed in the standards positions linked above. The W3C TAG review dismissed these solutions, and asked for a better way to solve their usecases: w3ctag/design-reviews#705 (comment).

Privacy is a fundamental human right that some browser engines are deeply committed to protect.

[lukewarlow]

That makes sense I'll go ahead and make separate issues when I'm back at my computer and then close this.