Responsive Images
The goal of this technique is to deliver optimized, contextual image sizes in responsive layouts that utilize dramatically different image sizes at different resolutions. Ideally, this could enable developers to start with mobile-optimized images in their HTML and specify a larger size to be used for users with larger screen resolutions — without requesting both image sizes, and without UA sniffing.
What is this?
The goal of this technique is to deliver optimized, contextual image sizes in responsive layouts that utilize dramatically different image sizes at different resolutions. Ideally, this could enable developers to start with mobile-optimized images in their HTML and specify a larger size to be used for users with larger screen resolutions — without requesting both image sizes, and without UA sniffing.
Instructions
* Note: you’ll need an apache web server for this to work.
- Add the “.htaccess”” file* to your web server public rootfile’s head (OR if you already have an .htaccess file, you can paste its contents into your existing file)
- Grab “responsiveimgs.min.js” and reference it from your HTML in the HEAD of your document:
- For any img elements that offer a larger desktop-friendly size, reference the larger image’s src via a ?full= query string on the image url. Note that the path after ?full= should be written so it works directly as the src attribute as well (in other words, include the same path info you need for the small version)
<img src=”small.jpg?full=large.jpg” >
How’s it work?
As soon as rwd-images.js loads, it tests the screen width, and if it’s large, it inserts a BASE element into the head of your page, directing all subsequent image, script, and stylesheet requests through a fictitious directory called “/rwd-router/”. As these requests reach the server, the .htaccess file determines whether the request is a responsive image or not (does it have a ?full query parameter?). It redirects responsive image requests immediately to their full size, while all non-responsive-image requests go to their proper destination through a URL rewrite that ignores the “/rwd-router/” segment.
