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Re: Including screen size to header messages (extending UserAgent)

Basem Emara <Basem@falafel.com> Thu, 12 June 2014 12:04 UTC

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From: Basem Emara <Basem@falafel.com>
To: Martin Nilsson <nilsson@opera.com>
CC: "ietf-http-wg@w3.org" <ietf-http-wg@w3.org>
Thread-Topic: Including screen size to header messages (extending UserAgent)
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Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2014 12:00:39 +0000
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Subject: Re: Including screen size to header messages (extending UserAgent)
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Yes, but this is needed in the server-side to redirect a user to a mobile site for example. Otherwise, a client-side redirect is only possible which would cause a delay and a white flash of screen.

On Jun 12, 2014, at 7:58 AM, "Martin Nilsson" <nilsson@opera.com<mailto:nilsson@opera.com>> wrote:

On Thu, 12 Jun 2014 13:14:33 +0200, Basem Emara <Basem@falafel.com<mailto:Basem@falafel.com>> wrote:

Please see following contribution to the spec to handle different screen sizes for a post mobile world (written in 1996!):
http://www.watersprings.org/pub/id/draft-mutz-http-attributes-00.txt

It was intended for HTTP/1.1, but did not make it. It should be reconsidered for HTTP/2.

Current UserAgent is supplied in the header message, but this is insufficient in deducing the screen size. We are forced to look into a table of all possible UserAgents and their screen specs to come up with the screen size. This is maintenance nightmare since ne mobile devices and UserAgents are introduced every day. Servers need to know the screen size rather than the device type to serve different content or redirect to a site more tailored to their screen dimensions.


While using the user agent header is not a workable solution (not only are there always new devices, some reuses the user agent header string of other devices), there are already methods available to do runtime detection of screen size using javascript or CSS.

/Martin Nilsson

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