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Actually, the viewport meta tag is (being made) CSS [1], and it’s way beyond me why unstyled HTML is rendered unreadably small on mobile devices without it (and

Actually, the viewport meta tag is (being made) CSS [1], and it’s way beyond me why unstyled HTML is rendered unreadably small on mobile devices without it (and without any fixed layout to speak of)... [1] https://www.w3.org/TR/css-device-adapt-1/ https://www.w3.org/TR/css-device-adapt-1/

rmrfrmrf 9y ago
> it’s way beyond me why unstyled HTML is rendered unreadably small on mobile devices without it Because browsers that did that would be both breaking spec compliance and introducing vendor-specific rendering, two things that IE proved were very very bad.
- ComputerGuru 9y ago
  Every browser in use today has a default stylesheet that injects styles into every site (if not explicitly overriden). Even for sites that have their own stylesheets. It's just that a) they're really ugly, and b) the mobile ones are ironically not mobile optimized.
  - rmrfrmrf 9y ago
    They’re not necessarily overridden. Percentages and ems are units that are derived relative to their inherited style. If you make your browser default have a base font of 24px instead of 14px and someone back in 2010 made their site css defined as html { font-size: 2em; } Then your site’s 28px default font size that worked just fine on every browser now becomes 48px on mobile and breaks everything.
    - ComputerGuru 9y ago
      That’s actually the original purpose behind the relative sizing, so people could choose a base text size that best suited them.
      - Moru 9y ago
        That was before the pixel-perfect designers got full control over how I read stuff on my own computer :-)
- ezequiel-garzon 9y ago
  What spec compliance is broken if the browser renders unstyled HTML with a font big enough most humans can read it?
jimmaswell 9y ago
The text size on the linked npr pages was perfect for me on firefox mobile.
- ezequiel-garzon 9y ago
  The problem arises without the viewport meta tag, and not on all browsers or devices. This site does use this tag, which has become sort of mandatory even when there’s no layout.

rmrfrmrf 9y ago

> it’s way beyond me why unstyled HTML is rendered unreadably small on mobile devices without it Because browsers that did that would be both breaking spec compliance and introducing vendor-specific rendering, two things that IE proved were very very bad.

ComputerGuru 9y ago
Every browser in use today has a default stylesheet that injects styles into every site (if not explicitly overriden). Even for sites that have their own stylesheets. It's just that a) they're really ugly, and b) the mobile ones are ironically not mobile optimized.
- rmrfrmrf 9y ago
  They’re not necessarily overridden. Percentages and ems are units that are derived relative to their inherited style. If you make your browser default have a base font of 24px instead of 14px and someone back in 2010 made their site css defined as html { font-size: 2em; } Then your site’s 28px default font size that worked just fine on every browser now becomes 48px on mobile and breaks everything.
  - ComputerGuru 9y ago
    That’s actually the original purpose behind the relative sizing, so people could choose a base text size that best suited them.
    - Moru 9y ago
      That was before the pixel-perfect designers got full control over how I read stuff on my own computer :-)
ezequiel-garzon 9y ago
What spec compliance is broken if the browser renders unstyled HTML with a font big enough most humans can read it?

jimmaswell 9y ago

The text size on the linked npr pages was perfect for me on firefox mobile.

ezequiel-garzon 9y ago
The problem arises without the viewport meta tag, and not on all browsers or devices. This site does use this tag, which has become sort of mandatory even when there’s no layout.