

Use this to demonstrate Adaptive, Responsive, Static and Liquid  - johnpark
http://liquidapsive.com/

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baddox
I've never heard this distinction between adaptive and responsive. The article
claims that responsive layouts are series of liquid layouts while adaptive
layouts are series of static layouts. I was under the impression that
"responsive" refers to all usage of media queries to swap layouts, and it just
so happens that most of the time liquid layouts are used.

~~~
rmrfrmrf
I haven't heard of adaptive before either, but I kind of like it. The original
book on responsive design spent a lot of time talking about how to correctly
make liquid layouts, and heavily advocated for their use along with media
queries. It wasn't until Bootstrap that responsive design also started meaning
static layouts with media queries.

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rudyrigot
It's nice... and also very wrong, if you take the initial definition of
adaptive web design!

Adaptive web design as introduced by Aaron Gustafson in the "Adaptive Web
Design" book has little to do with layout design, and everything to do with
progressive enhancement and adapting the website's behavior to the browser's
abilities (geolocation, ...)

But I guess, most people didn't read the book, and now everyone has their own
definition for it, so in effect, it doesn't mean much anymore; some say it's
non-fluid RWD (like here), some say it's server-side components (like most
people), some say it's exactly the same as RWD... oh well, pick your favorite!

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KerrickStaley
I had this idea about using a "utility" function to represent how useful a
given amount of screen space is to each widget, and then choosing the layout
that maximizes the sum of the utility functions. It hasn't gained any
traction, and I haven't had time to implement it myself.

See [http://gtk.10911.n7.nabble.com/Idea-for-automatic-widget-
lay...](http://gtk.10911.n7.nabble.com/Idea-for-automatic-widget-layout-
td59448.html) for more details.

~~~
mattdw
I quite like this idea. A lot of toolkits already allow a widget to specify a
"preferred size." I wonder if a simpler approach to your idea would be similar
to e.g. the Accept-Content-Type HTTP header; a widget lists a series of
preferred widths (or width ranges) with weights.

    
    
      preferred-width: 300px, 1.0; 200px..299px, 0.7; 100px..199px, 0.5;
    

That's slightly less flexible than a utility curve function, but (especially
if ordered) is far easier to optimize for, as choices are ordered and
restricted.

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Kiro
When do you use em for height/width on boxes? And why not use % instead?

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adamwong246
Most illustrative. Thanks!

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_sabe_
Did this site really deserve its own domain? We (as the internet) really ended
up misusing the domain system and the only one benefiting from it are those
selling domains.

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rmrfrmrf
I can't really see a downside to this page having its own domain name. Also
your point makes no sense... clearly liquidapsive.com is much more memorable
than
[http://www.yahoo.com/geocities/en/us/~liquidapsive/home.html](http://www.yahoo.com/geocities/en/us/~liquidapsive/home.html)

So, no, domain (re)sellers aren't the only ones benefiting. And TBH the
credibility of your statement is questionable given that ICANN doesn't
directly sell domain names anyway.

~~~
_sabe_
Well as a common practice seems to be to always go trough google for
everything, I'm actually not sure if it does matter?

Besides, even if it where some github.io page or something, I got the link
here, now I can bookmark it.

Half a year from now i wont remember liquidapsive.com or
[http://www.yahoo.com/geocities/en/us/~liquidapsive/home.html](http://www.yahoo.com/geocities/en/us/~liquidapsive/home.html)
anyway.

I actually don't think using domains instead of paths or sub-domains makes
things easier at all. Here's an example. Lets say you wan't to know about the
latest playstation. Where do you go? ps.com, playstation.com, playstation4.com
or sony.com? As a non gamer, I have no idea but I know its made by Sony so I
guess that's where I'd go.

