On 16 May 2012 20:12, Jacob Mather <jmat...@itsmajax.com> wrote: > Maybe this is the better question: > > Why does the pre-loader matter so much? > > Basing the selected image off of browser width is inherently > backwards. The content should be informed by the layout, not by the > browser. >
I do agree with you (it's all about layout rather than screen width - it's the layout that dictates the content images and it's the screen width that dictates the layout - there's a clear stack of dependancies and at the moment that isn't reflected in the technology we use). However I think the problem right now is that at the time the browser see's the <img /> it is likely to not know the layout. The CSS hasn't loaded yet and the layout hasn't been applied - so the image can't know how big it needs to be. This is why I put forward the idea of setting breakpoints in the <head> as a <meta> tag. That is the one and only place that other technologies can be sure will have already been loaded.