Today’s adult entertainment consumer is seeking cutting-edge viewing options across a wide range of platforms; from bigscreen TVs to small-screen mobile devices and all types of computer displays, content publishers are striving to suit the needs of a “one size does not fit all” audience.

According to W3.org, the CSS viewmode specification “defines a media feature to match the different visual presentation modes that can be applied to web applications and thereby apply different styling based on these different modes using CSS media queries.”

W3C says its role in making this formal recommendation is to draw attention to the finalized specification and to promote its widespread deployment as a way of enhancing “the functionality and interoperability of the web” — and XBIZ is happy to help:

The standards-body explains that whether in-browser or deployed as widgets, on most platforms, web applications can be run in multiple visual modes.

“At times they may occupy the entire screen, at others they may be minimized to a specific docking area; at times they may have chrome that matches the operating system’s style while at others they may be providing their own controls in order to provide for a more immersive experience,” the recommendation states.

“The user is generally in control of at least several aspects of these modalities, and it is therefore important for authors to be able to react to these in order to provide different styling to their applications.”

As a result, W3C defined the view-mode media feature to include several values — “floating,” “fullscreen,” “maximized,” “minimized” and “windowed.”

W3.org provides this simple example of view-mode style sheet coding:

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

As you can see, view-mode allows coders to target not only by type of display device, but in the case of tablets and the like, by the way it is held.

For image and video-rich adult entertainment applications, the floating and fullscreen modes in particular, provide unique visual opportunities for forward-looking designers.

The latest version of the full specification is available online (www.w3.org/TR/).