1. Introduction
This section is not normative.
CSS 2.1 [CSS21] specifies an initial containing block for continuous media that has the dimensions of the viewport. Mobile/handheld device browsers have a viewport that is generally a lot narrower than a desktop browser window at a zoom level that gives a CSS pixel size recommended by CSS 2.1.
The narrow viewport is a problem for documents designed to look good in desktop browsers. The result is that mobile browser vendors use a fixed initial containing block size that is different from the viewport size, and close to that of a typical desktop browser window. In addition to scrolling or panning, zooming is often used to change between an overview of the document and zoom in on particular areas of the document to read and interact with.
Certain DOCTYPEs (for instance XHTML Mobile Profile) are used to recognize mobile documents which are assumed to be designed for handheld devices, hence using the viewport size as the initial containing block size.
Additionally, an HTML <META>
tag has been
introduced for allowing an author to specify the size of the initial
containing block, and the initial zoom factor directly. It was first
implemented by Apple for the Safari/iPhone browser, but has since been
implemented for the Opera, Android, and Fennec browsers. These
implementations are not fully interoperable and this specification is
an attempt at standardizing the functionality provided by the
viewport <META>
tag in CSS.
This specification is written from an implementation centric point of view, making it arguably difficult to read. Significant editorial work may be needed to make it more understandable to different audiences. It also should clarify which viewport is referred to by various js APIs. See this blog post by ppk for a good discussion of these issues.
Various issues about this specification and related specifications are listed in this report.
2. Values
This specification follows the CSS property definition conventions from [CSS3SYN].
Value types are defined in [CSS3VAL].
3. The viewport
In CSS 2.1 a viewport is a feature of a user agent for continuous media and used to establish the initial containing block for continuous media. For paged media, the initial containing block is based on the page area. The page area can be set through @page to paged media, and they will not interact or conflict.
This specification introduces a way of overriding the size of the viewport provided by the user agent (UA). Because of this, we need to introduce the difference between the initial viewport and the actual viewport.
- initial viewport
- This refers to the viewport before any UA or author styles have overridden the viewport given by the window or viewing area of the UA. Note that the initial viewport size will change with the size of the window or viewing area.
- actual viewport
- This is the viewport you get after the cascaded viewport descriptors, and the following constraining procedure have been applied.
When the actual viewport cannot fit inside the window or viewing area, either because the actual viewport is larger than the initial viewport or the zoom factor causes only parts of the actual viewport to be visible, the UA should offer a scrolling or panning mechanism.
It is recommended that initially the upper-left corners of the actual viewport and the window or viewing area are aligned if the
base direction of the document is ltr. Similarly, that the upper-right
corners are aligned when the base direction is rtl. The base direction
for a document is defined as the computed value of the direction property for the first <BODY>
element of
an HTML or XHTML document. For other document types, it is the
computed direction for the root element.
"dbaron: The question is, what does this do on the desktop browser? (And what’s a desktop browser)". Need to say that a "desktop" browser typically have no UA styles, as opposed to the UA stylesheet outlined for current mobile behaviour, and that no UA styles for @viewport will give "desktop" behaviour per default (actual viewport is initial viewport).
4. The @viewport#at-ruledef-viewportReferenced in:3. The viewport (2)4. The @viewport rule (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)4.1. Syntax (2)5. Viewport descriptors5.1. The min-width and max-width descriptors (2)5.2. The width shorthand descriptor5.3. The min-height and max-height descriptors (2)5.4. The height shorthand descriptor5.5. The zoom descriptor5.6. The min-zoom descriptor5.7. The max-zoom descriptor5.8. The user-zoom descriptor5.9. The orientation descriptor7. Media Queries (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)8. CSSOM8.2. Interface CSSViewportRule (2)9. Viewport <META> element9.4. Translation into @viewport descriptors (2) The width and height properties (2) The initial-scale, minimum-scale, and maximum-scale properties The user-scalable property11. UA stylesheets rule
An example of such misguided use would be to write @viewport { width: 320px; }
instead of @viewport { width: auto; }
to make a document “mobile friendly”.
The @viewport at-rule consists of the @-keyword followed by a block of descriptors describing the viewport.
The descriptors inside an @viewport rule are per document and there is no inheritance involved. Hence declarations using the inherit keyword will be dropped. They work similarly to @page descriptors and follow the cascading order of CSS. Hence, descriptors in @viewport rules will override descriptors from preceding rules. The declarations allow !important which will affect cascading of descriptors accordingly.
@viewport rules apply to top level documents only.
@viewport { width: 320px auto; }
4.1. Syntax
The syntax for the @viewport rule is as follows (using the notation from the Grammar appendix of CSS 2.1 [CSS21]):
viewport : VIEWPORT_SYM S* '{' S* declaration? [ ';' S* declaration? ]* '}' S* ;
with the new token:
@{V}{I}{E}{W}{P}{O}{R}{T} {return VIEWPORT_SYM;}
where:
V v|\\0{0,4}(56|76)(\r\n|[ \t\r\n\f])?|\\v W w|\\0{0,4}(57|77)(\r\n|[ \t\r\n\f])?|\\w
The viewport
non-terminal is added to the stylesheet
production along with the ruleset
, media
, and page
non-terminals:
stylesheet : [ CHARSET_SYM STRING ';' ]? [S|CDO|CDC]* [ import [ CDO S* | CDC S* ]* ]* [ [ ruleset | media | page | viewport ] [ CDO S* | CDC S* ]* ]* ;
It is also added to the @supports:
nested_statement : ruleset | media | page | font_face_rule | keyframes_rule | supports_rule | viewport ;
5. Viewport descriptors
This section presents the descriptors that are allowed inside an @viewport rule. Other descriptors than those listed here will be dropped.
Relative length values are resolved against initial values. For instance 'em’s are resolved against the initial value of the font-size property. Viewport lengths (vw, vh, vmin, vmax) are relative to the initial viewport.
5.1. The min-width and max-width descriptors
min- and max- functionality can be achieved with media queries, should these be removed?
Name: | min-width#descdef-viewport-min-widthReferenced in:5.1. The min-width and max-width descriptors (2)5.2. The width shorthand descriptor (2) (3) Resolve non-auto lengths to pixel lengths The width and height properties |
---|---|
For: | @viewport |
Value: | <viewport-length> |
Initial: | auto |
Percentages: | Refer to the width of the initial viewport |
Media: | visual, continuous |
Computed value: | auto, an absolute length, or a percentage as specified |
Name: | max-width#descdef-viewport-max-widthReferenced in:5.1. The min-width and max-width descriptors (2)5.2. The width shorthand descriptor (2) (3) Resolve non-auto lengths to pixel lengths The width and height properties |
---|---|
For: | @viewport |
Value: | <viewport-length> |
Initial: | auto |
Percentages: | Refer to the width of the initial viewport |
Media: | visual, continuous |
Computed value: | auto, an absolute length, or a percentage as specified |
Specifies the minimum and maximum width of the viewport that is used to set the size of the initial containing block where
<viewport-length>#typedef-viewport-lengthReferenced in:5.1.
The min-width and max-width descriptors (2)5.2.
The width shorthand descriptor (2) (3)5.3.
The min-height and max-height descriptors (2)5.4.
The height shorthand descriptor (2) (3)9.3. extend-to-zoomAppendix A. Changes = auto | <percentage>
and the values have the following meanings:
- auto#valdef-viewport-length-autoReferenced in:6.1. Definitions Resolve non-auto lengths to pixel lengths Resolve initial width and height from min/max descriptors (2) Resolve width value (2) Resolve height value Resolving 'extend-to-zoom' (2)11.1. Large screen UA styles
- The used value is calculated from the other descriptors'
values according to the constraining procedure.
The user-agent stylesheets recommended in the informative section don’t adequately represent current implementation behaviors. Should there be a more explicit mechanism for switching between UA default behavior and requesting the CSS pixel?
- <length>
- A non-negative absolute or relative length.
- <percentage>
- A percentage value relative to the width or height of the initial viewport at zoom factor 1.0, for horizontal and vertical lengths respectively. Must be non-negative.
The min-width and max-width descriptors are inputs to the constraining procedure. The width will initially be set as close as possible to the ''initial viewport'' width within the min/max constraints.
5.2. The width shorthand descriptor
Name: | width#descdef-viewport-widthReferenced in:5.2. The width shorthand descriptor The width and height properties (2) |
---|---|
For: | @viewport |
Value: | <viewport-length>{1,2} |
Initial: | See individual descriptors |
Percentages: | See individual descriptors |
Media: | visual, continuous |
Computed value: | See individual descriptors |
This is a shorthand descriptor for setting both min-width and max-width. One <viewport-length> value will set both min-width and max-width to that value. Two <viewport-length> values will set min-width to the first and max-width to the second.
5.3. The min-height and max-height descriptors
Name: | min-height#descdef-viewport-min-heightReferenced in:5.3. The min-height and max-height descriptors Resolve non-auto lengths to pixel lengths The width and height properties |
---|---|
For: | @viewport |
Value: | <viewport-length> |
Initial: | auto |
Percentages: | Refer to the height of the initial viewport |
Media: | visual, continuous |
Computed value: | auto, an absolute length, or a percentage as specified |
Name: | max-height#descdef-viewport-max-heightReferenced in:5.3. The min-height and max-height descriptors Resolve non-auto lengths to pixel lengths The width and height properties |
---|---|
For: | @viewport |
Value: | <viewport-length> |
Initial: | auto |
Percentages: | Refer to the height of the initial viewport |
Media: | visual, continuous |
Computed value: | auto, an absolute length, or a percentage as specified |
Specifies the minimum and maximum height of the initial containing block.
The min-height and max-height descriptors are inputs to the constraining procedure. The height will initially be set as close as possible to the ''initial viewport'' height within the min/max constraints.
5.4. The height shorthand descriptor
Name: | height#descdef-viewport-heightReferenced in:5.4. The height shorthand descriptor The width and height properties |
---|---|
For: | @viewport |
Value: | <viewport-length>{1,2} |
Initial: | See individual descriptors |
Percentages: | See individual descriptors |
Media: | visual, continuous |
Computed value: | See individual descriptors |
This is a shorthand descriptor for setting both min-height and max-height. One <viewport-length> value will set both min-height and max-height to that value. Two <viewport-length> values will set min-height to the first and max-height to the second.
5.5. The zoom descriptor
Name: | zoom#descdef-viewport-zoomReferenced in:5.5. The zoom descriptor (2)5.6. The min-zoom descriptor (2) (3)5.7. The max-zoom descriptor (2) (3) The width and height properties10. Handling auto for zoom (2) (3)Appendix A. Changes |
---|---|
For: | @viewport |
Value: | auto <percentage> |
Initial: | auto |
Percentages: | The zoom factor itself |
Media: | visual, continuous |
Computed value: | auto, or a non-negative number or percentage as specified |
Specifies the initial zoom factor for the window or viewing area. This is a magnifying glass type of zoom. Interactively changing the zoom factor from the initial zoom factor does not affect the size of the initial or the actual viewport.
Values have the following meanings:
- auto#valdef-zoom-autoReferenced in:5.5. The zoom descriptor5.6. The min-zoom descriptor (2)5.7. The max-zoom descriptor (2)6.1. Definitions (2) (3) Resolve min-zoom and max-zoom values (2) Constrain zoom value to the [min-zoom, max-zoom] range Resolving 'extend-to-zoom' (2) (3) The width and height properties10. Handling auto for zoom (2) (3)
- The zoom factor is UA-dependent. The UA may use the size of the area of the canvas on which the document is rendered to find that initial zoom factor. See this section for a proposed way of handling auto values for zoom.
- <number>
- A non-negative number used as a zoom factor. A factor of 1.0 means that no zooming is done. Values larger than 1.0 gives a zoomed-in effect and values smaller than 1.0 a zoomed-out effect.
- <percentage>
- A non-negative percentage value used as a zoom factor. A factor of 100% means that no zooming is done. Values larger than 100% gives a zoomed-in effect and values smaller than 100% a zoomed-out effect.
5.6. The min-zoom descriptor
Name: | min-zoom#descdef-viewport-min-zoomReferenced in:5.6. The min-zoom descriptor9.3. extend-to-zoom The initial-scale, minimum-scale, and maximum-scale properties (2) |
---|---|
For: | @viewport |
Value: | auto <percentage> |
Initial: | auto |
Percentages: | The zoom factor itself |
Media: | visual, continuous |
Computed value: | auto, or a non-negative number or percentage as specified |
Specifies the smallest allowed zoom factor. It is used as input to the constraining procedure to constrain non-auto zoom values, but also to limit the allowed zoom factor that can be set through user interaction. The UA should also use this value as a constraint when choosing an actual zoom factor when the used value of zoom is auto.
Values have the following meanings:
- auto
- The lower limit on zoom factor is UA dependant. There will be no minimum value constraint on the zoom descriptor used in the constraining procedure
- <number>
- A non-negative number limiting the minimum value of the zoom factor.
- <percentage>
- A non-negative percentage limiting the minimum value of the zoom factor.
5.7. The max-zoom descriptor
Name: | max-zoom#descdef-viewport-max-zoomReferenced in:5.7. The max-zoom descriptor9.3. extend-to-zoom The initial-scale, minimum-scale, and maximum-scale properties (2) (3) |
---|---|
For: | @viewport |
Value: | auto <percentage> |
Initial: | auto |
Percentages: | The zoom factor itself |
Media: | visual, continuous |
Computed value: | auto, or a non-negative number or percentage as specified |
Specifies the largest allowed zoom factor. It is used as input to the constraining procedure to constrain non-auto zoom values, but also to limit the allowed zoom factor that can be set through user interaction. The UA should also use this value as a constraint when choosing an actual zoom factor when the used value of zoom is auto.
Values have the following meanings:
- auto
- The upper limit on zoom factor is UA dependant. There will be no maximum value constraint on the zoom descriptor used in the constraining procedure
- <number>
- A non-negative number limiting the maximum value of the zoom factor.
- <percentage>
- A non-negative percentage limiting the maximum value of the zoom factor.
5.8. The user-zoom descriptor
Name: | user-zoom#descdef-viewport-user-zoomReferenced in:5.8. The user-zoom descriptor The user-scalable property |
---|---|
For: | @viewport |
Value: | zoom | fixed |
Initial: | zoom |
Percentages: | N/A |
Media: | visual, continuous |
Computed value: | as specified |
Specifies if the zoom factor can be changed by user interaction or not.
Values have the following meanings:
- zoom#valdef-user-zoom-zoomReferenced in: The user-scalable property (2)
- The user can interactively change the zoom factor.
- fixed#valdef-user-zoom-fixedReferenced in: The user-scalable property (2)
- The user cannot interactively change the zoom factor.
5.9. The orientation descriptor
Name: | orientation#descdef-viewport-orientationReferenced in:5.9. The orientation descriptor |
---|---|
For: | @viewport |
Value: | auto | landscape |
Initial: | auto |
Percentages: | N/A |
Media: | visual, continuous |
Computed value: | as specified |
This descriptor is used to request that a document is displayed in portrait or landscape mode. For a UA/device where the orientation is changed upon tilting the device, an author can use this descriptor to inhibit the orientation change. The descriptor should be respected for standalone web applications, and when the document is displayed in fullscreen. It is recommended that it is ignored for normal web navigation to avoid confusing the user.
Values have the following meanings:
- auto
- The UA automatically chooses the orientation based on the device’s normal mode of operation. The UA may choose to change the orientation of the presentation when the device is tilted.
- portrait
- The document should be locked to portrait presentation.
- landscape
- The document should be locked to landscape presentation.
6. Constraining viewport descriptor values
6.1. Definitions
For the procedure below:
Descriptors refer to the values resolved/constrained to at that point in the procedure. They are initially resolved to their computed values.
width
and height
refer
to the resolved viewport size and not the shorthand descriptors. They
are both initially auto.
MIN/MAX
computations where one of the arguments is auto resolve to the other argument. For instance, MIN(0.25, auto) = 0.25
, and MAX(5, auto) = 5
.
initial-width
is the width of the initial viewport in pixels at zoom factor 1.0.
initial-height
is the height of the initial viewport in pixels at zoom factor 1.0.
6.2. The procedure
The used values are resolved from the computed values going through the steps below.
User agents are expected, but not required, to re-run this procedure and re-layout the document, if necessary, in response to changes in the user environment, for example if the device is tilted from landscape to portrait mode or the window that forms the ''initial viewport'' is resized.
However, Media Queries and Device Adaption are tethered specifications. As a result, UAs that also support Media Queries must re-run this procedure and re-layout the document in all cases where changes in the user environment would cause them to re-evaluate Media Queries.
Resolve min-zoom
and max-zoom
values
Constrain zoom
value to
the [min-zoom, max-zoom]
range
- If
zoom
is not auto, setzoom = MAX(min-zoom, MIN(max-zoom, zoom))
Resolve non-auto lengths to pixel lengths
- Resolve absolute lengths and percentages to pixel values for the min-width, max-width, min-height, and max-height descriptors.
Resolve initial width
and height
from min/max
descriptors
- If
min-width
ormax-width
is not auto, setwidth = MAX(min-width, MIN(max-width, initial-width))
- If
min-height
ormax-height
is not auto, setheight = MAX(min-height, MIN(max-height, initial-height))
Resolve width
value
- If
width
andheight
are both auto, setwidth = initial-width
- Otherwise, if
width
is auto, setwidth = height * (initial-width / initial-height)
, orwidth = initial-width
ifinitial-height
is 0.
Resolve height
value
- If
height
is auto, setheight = width * (initial-height / initial-width)
, orheight = initial-height
ifinitial-width
is 0.
7. Media Queries
For several media features, the size of the initial containing block and the orientation of the device affects the result of a media query evaluation, which means that the effect of @viewport rules on media queries needs extra attention.
From the Media Queries specification [MEDIAQ]:
“To avoid circular dependencies, it is never necessary to apply the style sheet in order to evaluate expressions. For example, the aspect ratio of a printed document may be influenced by a style sheet, but expressions involving device-aspect-ratio will be based on the default aspect ratio of the user agent.”
The UA must however cascade @viewport rules separately with the initial viewport size used for evaluating media feature expressions and other values that depend on the viewport size to avoid circular dependencies, but use the actual viewport size when cascading all other rules.
Procedure for applying CSS rules:
- Cascade all @viewport rules using the initial viewport size for values and evaluations which rely on viewport size
- Compute the actual viewport from the cascaded viewport descriptors
- Cascade all other rules using the actual viewport size
The rationale for using the viewport descriptors obtained from applying the @viewport rules for evaluating media queries for style rules, is that media queries should match the actual viewport that the document will be layed out in and not the initial or the one specified in the UA stylesheet. Consider the example below given that the UA stylesheet has a viewport width of 980px, but an initial viewport width of 320px. The author has made separate styles to make the document look good for initial containing block widths above or below 400px. The actual viewport used will be 320px wide, and in order to match the styles with the ''actual viewport'' width, the viewport resulting from applying the @viewport rules should be used to evaluate the media queries.
@viewport { width: auto; } @media screen and (min-width: 400px) { div { color: red; } } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { div { color: green; } }
Another example:
@media screen and (width: 397px) { div { color: green; } } @viewport { width: 397px; }
Below is an example where an @viewport rule relies on a media query affected by the viewport descriptors.
@viewport { width: 397px; } @media screen and (width: 397px) { @viewport { width: 500px; } } @media screen and (width: 397px) { div { color: green; } }
It is recommended that authors do not write @viewport rules that rely on media queries whose evaluation is affected by viewport descriptors. Is is also recommended that the @viewport rule(s) is placed as early in the document as possible to avoid unnecessary re-evaluation of media queries or reflows.
8. CSSOM
The @viewport rule is exposed to the CSSOM through a new CSSRule interface.
8.1. Interface CSSRule
The following rule type is added to the CSSRule
interface. It provides identification for the new viewport rule.
partial interface CSSRule { const unsigned short VIEWPORT_RULE = 15; };
8.2. Interface CSSViewportRule
The CSSViewportRule#cssviewportruleReferenced in:8.2. Interface CSSViewportRule interface represents the style rule for an @viewport rule.
interface CSSViewportRule : CSSRule { readonly attribute CSSStyleDeclaration style; };
- style#dom-cssviewportrule-styleReferenced in:8.2. Interface CSSViewportRule of type CSSStyleDeclaration, readonly
- This attribute represents the viewport descriptors associated with this @viewport rule.
9. Viewport <META>
element
This section is not normative.
This section describes a mapping from the content attribute of the
viewport <META>
element, first
implemented by Apple in the iPhone Safari browser, to the descriptors
of the @viewport rule described in this
specification.
In order to match the Safari implementation, the following parsing algorithm and translation rules rely on the UA stylesheet below. See the section on UA stylesheets for an elaborate description.
@viewport { width: extend-to-zoom 980px; min-zoom: 0.25; max-zoom: 5; }
Note that these values might not fit well with all UAs. For instance, with a min-zoom of 0.25 you will be able to fit the whole width of the document inside the window for widths up to 1280px on a 320px wide device like the original iPhone, but only 960px if you have a 240px display (all widths being given in CSS pixel units).
9.1. Properties
The recognized properties in the viewport <META>
element are:
width
height
initial-scale
minimum-scale
maximum-scale
user-scalable
9.2. Parsing algorithm
Below is an algorithm for parsing the content
attribute of the <META>
tag produced
from testing Safari on the iPhone. The testing was
done on an iPod touch running iPhone OS 4. The UA string of the
browser: "Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X;
en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5
Mobile/8A293 Safari/6531.22.7"
. The pseudo code notation
used is based on the notation used in [Algorithms].
The whitespace class contains the following characters (ascii):
- Horizontal tab (0x09)
- Line feed (0x0a)
- Carriage return (0x0d)
- Space (0x20)
The recognized separator between property/value pairs is comma for the Safari implementation. Some implementations have supported both commas and semicolons. Because of that, existing content use semicolons instead of commas. Authors should be using comma in order to ensure content works as expected in all UAs, but implementors may add support for both to ensure interoperability for existing content.
The separator class contains the following characters (ascii), with comma as the preferred separator and semicolon as optional:
- Comma (0x2c)
- Semicolon (0x3b)
Parse-Content(S) i ← 1 while i ≤ length[S] do while i ≤ length[S] and S[i] in [whitespace, separator, '='] do i ← i + 1 if i ≤ length[S] then i ← Parse-Property(S, i) Parse-Property(S, i) start ← i while i ≤ length[S] and S[i] not in [whitespace, separator, '='] do i ← i + 1 if i > length[S] or S[i] in [separator] then return i property-name ← S[start .. (i - 1)] while i ≤ length[S] and S[i] not in [separator, '='] do i ← i + 1 if i > length[S] or S[i] in [separator] then return i while i ≤ length[S] and S[i] in [whitespace, '='] do i ← i + 1 if i > length[S] or S[i] in [separator] then return i start ← i while i ≤ length[S] and S[i] not in [whitespace, separator, '='] do i ← i + 1 property-value ← S[start .. (i - 1)] Set-Property(property-name, property-value) return i
Set-Property matches the listed property names case-insensitively.
The property-value
strings are interpreted
as follows:
- If a prefix of
property-value
can be converted to a number usingstrtod
, the value will be that number. The remainder of the string is ignored. - If the value can not be converted to a number as described above,
the whole
property-value
string will be matched with the following strings case-insensitively:yes
,no
,device-width
,device-height
- If the string did not match any of the known strings, the value is unknown.
9.3. extend-to-zoom
In order to be able to implement the functionality from <META>
viewport where the viewport width
or height is extended to fill the viewing area at a given zoom level,
we introduce a UA internal value to the list of <viewport-length> values called extend-to-zoom. It will be used in width and height
declarations in the translation outlined in the section below.
This new value is necessary in order to implement the mapping for two
reasons. First, whether resolving the width/height needs to extend the
pixel length to the visible width/height for a given zoom factor depends
on the current initial width/height. <meta name="viewport" content="width=400, initial-scale=1">
yields a width of 400px for an initial-width of 320px, and 640px for an
initial width of 640px. This can not be expressed as normative min/max
descriptors that would constrain correctly when the initial width changes
like for an orientation change.
Secondly, the extended width/height also relies on cascading viewport
properties from different sources, including min-zoom and max-zoom from the UA stylesheet. For instance, if the UA stylesheet
has max-zoom: 5
, and the initial width is 320px, <meta name="viewport" content="width=10">
will resolve to 64px.
Resolving 'extend-to-zoom
'
The 'extend-to-zoom
'
value is resolved to pixel or auto lengths as part of step 3 of the constraining procedure. Since this
is a non-normative descriptor value, the resolution is described
here. Note that max-descriptors need to be resolved to pixel lengths before min-descriptors when
'extend-to-zoom
'
is a valid value.
Let extend-zoom = MIN(zoom, max-zoom)
For non-auto extend-zoom
, let:
extend-width = initial-width / extend-zoom extend-height = initial-height / extend-zoom
Then, resolve for extend-to-zoom as follows:
-
If
extend-zoom
is auto: -
If
extend-zoom
is non-auto:- If
max-width
is 'extend-to-zoom
', setmax-width = extend-width
- If
max-height
is 'extend-to-zoom
', setmax-height = extend-height
- If
min-width
is 'extend-to-zoom
', setmin-width = MAX(extend-width, max-width)
- If
min-height
is 'extend-to-zoom
', setmin-height = MAX(extend-height, max-height)
- If
9.4. Translation into @viewport descriptors
The Viewport <META>
element is placed
in the cascade as if it was a <STYLE>
element,
in the exact same place in the dom, that only contains a single @viewport rule.
Each of the property/value pair from the parsing in the previous section are translated, and added to that single at-rule as follows:
Unknown properties
Unknown properties are dropped.
The width
and height
properties
The width
and height
viewport <META>
properties are
translated into width and height descriptors, setting the min-width/min-height value to extend-to-zoom and the max-width/max-height value to the length from the
viewport <META>
property as follows:
- Non-negative number values are translated to pixel lengths, clamped to
the range:
[1px, 10000px]
- Negative number values are dropped
-
device-width
anddevice-height
translate to 100vw and 100vh respectively - Other keywords and unknown values translate to 1px
Some existing UA implementations use device dimensions in CSS pixels, and some use the window dimensions (CSS pixels) for device-width / device-height. Above, we translate to 100vw / 100vh which are the window dimensions. The rationale is that the device dimensions would not be what the author intended for UAs where the window is resizable or does not fill the screen of the device.
This <META>
element:
<meta name="viewport" content="width=500, height=600">
translates into:
@viewport { width: extend-to-zoom 500px; height: extend-to-zoom 600px; }
For a viewport <META>
element that
translates into an @viewport rule with a non-auto zoom declaration and no width declaration:
-
If it adds a '
height
' descriptor, add:width: auto;
-
Otherwise, add:
width: extend-to-zoom;
to the @viewport rule.
<META>
element:
<meta name="viewport" content="initial-scale=1.0">
translates into:
@viewport { zoom: 1.0; width: extend-to-zoom; }
<META>
element:
<meta name="viewport" content="initial-scale=2.0, height=device-width">
translates into:
@viewport { zoom: 2.0; width: auto; height: extend-to-zoom 100%; }
The initial-scale
, minimum-scale
, and maximum-scale
properties
The properties are translated into
'zoom
',
'min-zoom
',
and 'max-zoom
'
respectively with the following translations of values.
- Non-negative number values are translated to <number> values,
clamped to the range
[0.1, 10]
- Negative number values are dropped
-
yes
is translated to 1 -
device-width
anddevice-height
are translated to 10 -
no
and unknown values are translated to 0.1
For a viewport <META>
element that translates
into an @viewport rule with no max-zoom declaration and a
non-auto min-zoom value that is larger than the max-zoom value of
the UA stylesheet, the min-zoom declaration value is clamped to the
UA stylesheet max-zoom value.
The user-scalable
property
The user-scalable
property is translated into user-zoom with the following value translations.
-
yes
andno
are translated into zoom and fixed respectively. - Numbers ≥ 1, numbers ≤ -1,
device-width
anddevice-height
are mapped to zoom - Numbers in the range
<-1, 1>
, and unknown values, are mapped to fixed
<META>
element:
<meta name="viewport" content="width=480, initial-scale=2.0, user-scalable=1">
will translate into this @viewport block:
@viewport { width: 480px; zoom: 2.0; user-zoom: zoom; }
10. Handling auto for zoom
This section is not normative.
This section presents one way of picking an actual value for the zoom descriptor when the used value is auto.
Given an initial viewport with size (initial-width,
initial-height)
, and a finite region within the canvas where the formatting structure is rendered (rendered-width,
rendered-height)
. That region is at least as large as the actual viewport.
Then, if the used value of zoom is auto, let the actual zoom factor be:
zoom = MAX(initial-width / rendered-width, initial-height / rendered-height)
The actual zoom factor should also be further limited by the [min-zoom, max-zoom] range.
11. UA stylesheets
This section is informative
Traditional user agents, used mostly on desktop and laptop computers, can easily be resized to fit most websites inside the initial viewport without breaking the layout. Using the recommendations below, sites not adding any @viewport rules themselves will continue to look and function like they always have.
11.1. Large screen UA styles
If a user agent has an initial viewport size large enough to fit common documents without breaking the layout, or which can easily to resized to do so, the recommendation is to have no UA styles. That means that it will have all descriptors initially set to auto, and behave as it would have without support for viewport descriptors.
If a user agent supports changing orientation, and the landscape mode’s size fits common documents as described above but the portrait mode’s size does not, it is recommended to set a minimum layout width equal to that of the width in landscape mode.
11.2. Small screen UA styles
For smaller screen UAs, the UA could set the minimum viewport width to typically used as an initial viewport width of a traditional user agent (as described above).
It is recommended that limitations in zooming capabilities are not reflected in the UA styles but rather only affect the used values for zoom. The min-zoom/max-zoom UA styles mentioned in the Viewport META section are there to give an accurate description of how the Safari browser behaves, not as part of a recommended UA stylesheet.
Appendix A. Changes
This appendix is informative.
This appendix describes changes from the 15 September 2011 First Public Working Draft.
- Made various editorial improvements and clarifications.
- Added OM Interfaces.
- Added semi-colon as separator in meta viewport.
- Created UA stylesheets section.
- Added recommendation for when to respect orientation property.
- Dropped support for the resolution descriptor.
- Decouple width/height and zoom, introducing extend-to-zoom value for meta viewport translation.
- Made normative rules about interaction of @viewport and @media.
- Allow 0 for <viewport-length> and zoom values
- Removed support for device-width/height.
- Apply @viewport to top level document only.
- Extend [CSS3-CONDITIONAL] rather than CSS21 for nesting in @media.