RICG-newsletter-2014-12-01.html

<h1>Use Cases, Use Counters, and Stickers</h1>

<p><strong>Teaser Text:</strong> It’s Cyber Monday, the newsletter’s late, and I am full of tryptophan and gratitude</p>

<h2>Element Queries progress</h2>

<p>We at the RICG are simultaneously working to both cleanly define the <em>problems</em> that element queries aim to solve, while also getting our hands dirty experimenting with a particular possible <em>solution</em>.</p>

<p>On the problem definition front — <a href="http://ircbot.responsiveimages.org/bot/log/respimg/2014-11-19#T102038">it has come to our attention</a> that the use cases doc has heretofore gotten a teensey-weensie bit ahead of itself, by proposing a specific solution rather than cleanly, simply, and thoroughly defining the problem at hand. Mat took <a href="https://github.com/ResponsiveImagesCG/eq-usecases/commit/7c5de85e99feefe830cc73811ad4a5129dd43f0c">a first pass at cutting the fat</a>, but work remains to be done.</p>

<p>The <a href="http://usecases.responsiveimages.org/">responsive images use cases document</a> served as a rock and a guiding light through the three-year onslaught of failed respimg proposals. We need, above all else as we embark on this journey, a strong use cases doc. Help us write one.</p>

<p>Simultaneously, the RICG is taking a stab at realizing a proposed solution. Johnathan Neal has a functional (totally experimental, and never-to-be-supported) <a href="https://github.com/jonathantneal/hitch-element-queries">element query prototype</a> up and running. Johnathan’s repo is a hacky little glimpse of one possible EQ ending, right here at the beginning of our story, which we can use to concretely explore the problem space, <a href="https://github.com/ResponsiveImagesCG/eq-demos">write demos</a>, and provide feedback that will inform EQ work going forward. Huzzah!</p>

<h2><a href="https://github.com/scottjehl/picturefill/releases/tag/2.2.0">Picturefill 2.2 hit stable</a></h2>

<p>And we’re going to need more hands on keyboards to get 2.3 out the door. Mat wrote an eloquent plea <a href="https://github.com/scottjehl/picturefill/issues/374">here</a>.</p>

<h2>Speaking of Mat writing eloquently</h2>

<p>True story: I drove 602 miles to Kansas City a fortnight ago to be a best man in a wedding and only <em>then</em> did it dawn on me that I wouldn’t be able to write both a toast and a newsletter before Friday. Oops. Mat bailed me out — <a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-respimg/2014Nov/0018.html">in fine form</a>. Thanks, Mat.</p>

<h2>Respimg deployment is spiking</h2>

<p>A while back I got pretty excited about chromestatus.com adding use counters for responsive image features. I did so in anticipation of being able to show you <a href="https://www.chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/524">charts</a> <a href="https://www.chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/523">like</a> <a href="https://www.chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/521">these</a>: responsive image markup adoption is surging like a bat out of aitch-eeee-triple-<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_graph">hockey-sticks</a>.</p>

<h2>Hey, RICG stickers!</h2>

<p>There are <a href="http://www.stickermule.com/user/1069094592/stickers">RICG stickers</a>! Stuff stockings accordingly.</p>

<h2>Leftovers</h2>

<p>I always loved a good turkey sandwich.</p>

<ul>
<li>Jason Grigsby will be talking respimg at An Event Apart in both <a href="http://aneventapart.com/event/seattle-2015">Seattle</a> and <a href="http://aneventapart.com/event/atlanta-2015">Atlanta</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.meetup.com/boston_JS/events/218914814/">Mat will be speaking about respimg, too</a> – at Bocoup on December 17th in Boston.</li>
<li>Steven Bradley over at Vanseo design has been on fire recently, posting a <a href="http://www.vanseodesign.com/tag/responsive-images/">series of great posts</a> about the new respimg features, culminating in <a href="http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/responsive-images-demo/">this nifty demo</a>.</li>
<li>Emil Björklund threw up <a href="http://jsbin.com/noxuze/">a little JSBin</a> which shows and tells the benefits of using <code>picture</code> to deliver WebPs with JPEG fallbacks.</li>
<li>Jonathan Hollin <a href="https://www.perpetual-beta.org/weblog/srcset-production-factory.html">wrote up his personal respimg workflow</a>, which uses <a href="http://www.noodlesoft.com/hazel.php">Hazel</a> to automatically generate variously-sized sources and a markup snippet as soon as the images are dropped in a folder.</li>
<li>ScientiaMobile wrote <a href="http://www.scientiamobile.com/page/responsive-images-specification-real-world-scenarios">an article</a> explaining the thinking behind their new (device-detection-centric) server-side auto-resizer, which stirred up some <a href="https://twitter.com/yoavweiss/status/538258500372422656">ambivolent</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/wilto/status/538413818763030528">react</a><a href="https://twitter.com/wilto/status/538414438664372224">ions</a>.</li>
<li>Finally, <a href="http://rocksolidthemes.com/de/contao/blog/responsive-images-picture-contao">this is in German so I can’t read it</a> (but it looks mighty fine!).</li>
</ul>

<p>See you in a couple of weeks!</p>

<p>—eric</p>