The 'view-mode' Media Feature

Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
  • 1.1 Design Goals and Requirements
• 2. Conformance
• 3. Security considerations
• 4. Definitions
• 5. The 'view-mode' media feature
  • 5.1 View modes
  • 5.2 Examples
• 6. Acknowledgements
• A. References
  • A.1 Normative references
  • A.2 Informative references

2. Conformance

As well as sections marked as non-normative, all authoring guidelines, diagrams, examples, and notes in this specification are non-normative. Everything else in this specification is normative.

The key words must, must not, required, should, should not, recommended, may, and optional in this specification are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].

This specification defines conformance criteria that apply to a single product: user agents that implement the interfaces that it contains.

3. Security considerations

Application could be designed to trick users into performing actions they do not wish to or to capture data that they did not intend to provide. Examples of situations in which the user could be tricked include, but are not limited to:

• applications that the user cannot see (full-screen invisible widgets or tiny web page) that can be used to run services without the user noticing or to intercept the user's interactions with other applications (such as a PIN-code entry) by layering themselves on top of them;
• applications that have no chrome and that could therefore masquerade some other existing objects on the screen (for example a lock and key logo indicating that a site a trustworthy).

Implementers are encouraged to take these issues into consideration and to provide limitations to what a Web application may do in order to ensure that the user is exposed to minimal risk.

4. Definitions

View mode

The view mode is the manner in which a Web application is presented to a user that corresponds to the metaphors and functionalities in use on a given platform. This specification defines a number of view modes that a user agent is expected to match to comparable platform-specific situations.

Chrome

The chrome comprises the visible parts of the user agent that do not depend on the content (e.g. window decorations, tool bars, title bars, menus).

Immersive

A user interface is said to be immersive when its controls and components are created to match the specific style of the application instead of using the chrome and widgets of the platform.

Media feature

The term media feature is defined in [MEDIAQ].

Screen area

The area of the screen that is generally available for applications, excluding parts that the system generally keeps to itself (e.g. a bar at the top for menus, time, or context, or at the bottom with a list of running applications).

Web application

A Web application is an application built and shipped using Web technology that may be running inside of a browser, as a widget, or in another type of container designed for this purpose.

Widgets

The term widget is defined in [WIDGETS].

Viewport

The term viewport is defined in [CSS21].

5. The 'view-mode' media feature

The view-mode media feature describes the mode in which the Web application is being shown as a running application on the platform.

Value:

windowed | floating | fullscreen | maximized | minimized

Applies to:

visual media types

Accepts min/max prefixes:

No

A user agent should make a best-effort attempt at matching the great variety of platform conventions in which it may be running a Web application to the list of view modes defined in this specification so that the view-mode media feature may describe common situations in a manner that is useful to authors. Each view mode is defined to be exclusive of the others.

@media handheld and (view-mode: floating) and (orientation: landscape) {
    // ...
}
@media tv and (view-mode: windowed) {
    // ...
}
@media handheld and (view-mode: fullscreen) {
    // ...
}