Without comment on the technical merit of the proposal or the underlying use 
case:

You might want to consider vetting this use case itself—independent of the 
solution you’re proposing—either here or on the WHATWG mailing list, as we did 
with the use cases we’ve already established in usecases.responsiveimages.org. 
You’ve just posted this proposed solution to three mailing lists, the GitHub 
issue tracker for `picture`, and the W3C bug tracker without any discussion of 
the viability of the use case it aims to solve in the first place.

While I appreciate that you have strong feelings on the subject, your best bet 
is to establish consensus that there’s a need for this solution in the first 
place. We’ve already expressed that this isn’t a use case the RICG is currently 
willing to undertake as part of our current proposal, as no one involved in 
discussions thus far has expressed a need for context-aware image source 
selection based on the size of the `picture` element. I don’t expect you to 
take my word for it entirely, but that fact may be worth considering at the 
outset.

-M


On Wednesday, Feb 27, 2013, at 6:24 AM, Nathanael D. Jones wrote:

> A Unified solution to <picture>
> 
> Perhaps there's a very simple way to support both pre- and post-layout 
> queries with <picture>, and sacrifice neither functionality or performance.
> 
> If sources specify the dimensions of the images (and more than one image 
> matches the media queries), we delay image fetching until CSS is downloaded; 
> otherwise fetching can occur immediately.
> 
> We can then apply sizing constraints to further filter the list of images 
> (media queries are still king, but if more than 1 image 'matches', we use 
> size constraints).
> 
> I've written up the details here: 
> https://gist.github.com/nathanaeljones/5047077
> 
> --- 
> 
> I also propose the expansion of the Use Cases and Requirements document to 
> include: 
> 
> 11 The solution SHOULD offer an method to leverage breakpoints defined in CSS.
> 
> 12. The solution SHOULD support a simplified syntax to support primary use 
> case 3.1 (preferably a list of images and their dimensions), in order to 
> reach users of content management systems and those without detailed 
> knowledge of CSS media queries.
> 
> This allows complexity to be moved from HTML to CSS, and removes the need for 
> high-volume repetition of breakpoint logic.
> 
> Authors who wish to use responsive web design will be able to use a CSS 
> framework or snippet and matching CSS classes on <picture> to achieve 
> responsive images - a path much less intimidating than CSS media queries, and 
> much easier for CMSes and authoring tools to support (how would a GUI for 
> media queries be designed)?
> 
> I fear for adoption of <picture> unless we can make it CMS and 'non-coder' 
> friendly. 
> 
> Thanks,
> Nathanael
> 
> 
> On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 7:31 PM, Edward O'Connor <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi Fred,
> 
> You wrote:
> 
> > If the 'picture' and 'srcset' proposals are limited to[…] using only
> > information available pre-layout[…] it may not be proper for ambiguity
> > in the RICG proposals to delay other development work in an area that
> > needs urgent attention.
> 
> I'd like to clarify two things:
> 
> 1) The srcset="" specification is not a proposal of the Responsive
>    Images Community Group, although feedback from the members of that
>    group have certainly contributed to the feature's design.
> 
> 2) By working on the srcset="" nor <picture> specifications within this
>    working group, those working on them are not delaying other work that
>    you or other WG members may want to take on. In particular, if you
>    would like to work on a proposal for an adaptive images feature that
>    relies on layout information, please do so! I would be happy to
>    review a draft in that area.
> 
> > It is not immediately obvious to me how the specialized 'picture' and
> > 'srcset' solutions proposed by the RICG could fit alongside more
> > general solutions and it is likely that more general solution would
> > subsume the current proposals.
> 
> I think we can address such confusion within these drafts when and if a
> more general solution is produced.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> Ted
> 
> 

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