On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 4:51 PM, Gervase Markham <g...@mozilla.org> wrote:
> Can we quickly revisit the question of whether to have one of "Touch" or
> "Tablet" in our UA string under some circumstances? We need to work out how
> Windows 8 Metro fits into our plans (bug 787786), plus the new pile of
> touch-enabled laptops and desktops that I see in the glossy ads which come
> with my weekly news magazine. The concern I see is that if we stick with
> "Tablet" and apply it consistently only to tablets, it will be increasingly
> not useful to web developers, and simply be a point of gratuitous confusion
> and incompatibility.
Metro doesn't really imply touch, though, does it? AFAICT, Windows RT
("Metro" is a deprecated term, AIUI) is a very visible part of the
non-touch desktop-level Windows 8 UI.
> Consistent options we could adopt on this question:
>
> A) Use "Touch" to indicate "has a touch-sensitive screen (and is not already
> marked 'Mobile')". This would lead to us using it on tablets, Windows 8
> machines, and any other desktop PC with a touchscreen. It would not be
> removed if a keyboard was _also_ present. This is Microsoft's approach.
If the above is true (Windows RT non-touch interfaces are common) then
this seems like a bad option. I.e. if Mozilla was to adopt a "Touch"
token in the UA, it would seem most ideal to only use it on hardware
that's actually touch-capable.
> B) Use "Tablet" to indicate "has a tablet form-factor (N" or greater, where
> suggested value for N is 7). So Windows 8 machines and other touch-screen
> desktop machines would have the desktop UA. If a tablet acquires a keyboard,
> like the Asus Transformer can, the token would ideally be removed. This is
> our current approach, and (as far as I can see) Opera's.
>
> C) Use "Mobile", like the Kindle and Nook. I think it's unlikely we'd want
> to do this for _all_ tablets, so let's say under a certain size, N", and use
> the desktop UA above that size. This is Amazon's approach.
>
> D) Use neither, like Chrome. UA sniffing is evil. Developers should use the
> presence of a touch API to detect touch capability, and use flexible layout
> to adapt to whatever screen size the user has. This is Google's approach.
Given all the options listed, this one sounds seriously attractive.
Let the developers use appropriate API's to figure out what kind of
layout is appropriate, instead of having them on confusing UA tokens.
> Options I want to avoid:
>
> X) Stick with "Tablet", but find out it ends up meaning "Touch" anyway. If
> you are arguing for sticking with Tablet, are you happy that we won't be
> using it on touchscreen desktops and laptops? Do you think that's what
> developers will expect?
>
> Y) Use both. Ick.
>
> Z) Use Touch on Windows 8, and Tablet everywhere else. This is bound to
> throw people off.
>
> Questions that I think are relevant:
>
> 1) What are web developers expecting? Are people making separate touch-only
> sites? Or separate tablet sites? Or are some people doing each of those?
>
> 2) Given the varied sizes of tablet, is a single "Tablet" token, which must
> inevitably have a size cutoff, actually going to be useful? Touch capability
> is at least binary.
Probably not.
> 3) Given the choice of "mobile or desktop", what sort of experience do we
> think people on tablets should have? Does it depend on size?
I think having it depend on size makes a lot of sense.
But that's just my $0.02,
Dirkjan
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