From 1aadd102a46d68405107b16bab95222448efed48 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Joost de Valk Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2026 08:09:31 +0200 Subject: [PATCH 1/2] add(considered): is Chromium-only and still an Editor's Draft Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) --- src/content/considered/meta-text-scale.md | 19 +++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 19 insertions(+) create mode 100644 src/content/considered/meta-text-scale.md diff --git a/src/content/considered/meta-text-scale.md b/src/content/considered/meta-text-scale.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..336f8770 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/content/considered/meta-text-scale.md @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +--- +title: '' +date: "2026-09-16" +reason: too-early +revisit: "A second engine shipping it, and the section leaving the Editor's Draft — a Working Draft or Candidate Recommendation of CSS Fonts 5 that still contains `text-scale-meta`. Either alone is not enough: a stable definition nobody else implements still leaves a one-browser recommendation, and a second implementation of an unstable definition can be obsoleted by the next editorial pass." +sources: + - title: "CSS Fonts Module Level 5 — The text-scale meta tag" + url: "https://drafts.csswg.org/css-fonts-5/#text-scale-meta" + publisher: "W3C CSS Working Group" + - title: '' + url: "https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/meta/name/text-scale" + publisher: "MDN" +--- + +Operating systems let people enlarge text system-wide, and on mobile browsers that setting has historically had no reliable effect on a web page's root font size. `` is the opt-in that changes this: it makes the root element's initial `font-size` scale in proportion to the OS and browser text-size settings, so a layout written in `rem` and font-size keywords grows with the user's preference — including `@media` breakpoints expressed in `rem`, which then move with the text rather than stranding it. It also turns off the browser's own text-autosizing heuristics, and on desktop it populates `env(preferred-text-scale)`. The default, `legacy`, is what every page gets today. + +This is exactly the shape of thing the spec covers: a single element in the ``, checkable from outside, whose "why" is about visitors rather than developers. It is not a build technique. What rules it out for now is the state of the definition and the state of support. The normative text lives in an Editor's Draft of CSS Fonts Level 5 — the CSS Working Group's own header on that document says it is for discussion only and may change at any moment — and the attribute ships only in Chromium: Chrome, Edge and Chrome Android since version 146 in March 2026, plus WebView and Opera. Firefox and Safari have not implemented it, which is the half of the market where OS text-size settings are most often the user's only lever. + +The risk of writing the page early is not merely that the advice would be premature. Opting in is a commitment: MDN warns that a page carrying `content="scale"` must be tested against the full scaling range of its target platforms, which on mobile runs from 200% to beyond 300%. A spec entry telling sites to add one `` tag would understate that, and the honest version of the page — add the tag, then rebuild your layout to survive triple-size text — is advice about sizing in relative units, which [the viewport meta page](/spec/foundations/meta-viewport/) already reaches from the pinch-zoom side. Until a second engine makes the tag worth the retrofit, that is where the useful guidance lives. From a5a07280b630c0645d6de13bdf7e97c2773c0545 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Joost de Valk Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2026 11:47:06 +0200 Subject: [PATCH 2/2] Correct text-scale Working Draft status and revisit criteria --- src/content/considered/meta-text-scale.md | 10 +++++----- 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-) diff --git a/src/content/considered/meta-text-scale.md b/src/content/considered/meta-text-scale.md index 336f8770..48f5a317 100644 --- a/src/content/considered/meta-text-scale.md +++ b/src/content/considered/meta-text-scale.md @@ -2,10 +2,10 @@ title: '' date: "2026-09-16" reason: too-early -revisit: "A second engine shipping it, and the section leaving the Editor's Draft — a Working Draft or Candidate Recommendation of CSS Fonts 5 that still contains `text-scale-meta`. Either alone is not enough: a stable definition nobody else implements still leaves a one-browser recommendation, and a second implementation of an unstable definition can be obsoleted by the next editorial pass." +revisit: "A second browser engine shipping compatible behaviour, with practical guidance for testing layouts across the supported text-scaling range. The definition already appears in the 13 September 2026 Working Draft of CSS Fonts 5; publication as a Working Draft is no longer an outstanding condition." sources: - - title: "CSS Fonts Module Level 5 — The text-scale meta tag" - url: "https://drafts.csswg.org/css-fonts-5/#text-scale-meta" + - title: "CSS Fonts Module Level 5 — Working Draft, 13 September 2026" + url: "https://www.w3.org/TR/2026/WD-css-fonts-5-20260913/#text-scale-meta" publisher: "W3C CSS Working Group" - title: '' url: "https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/meta/name/text-scale" @@ -14,6 +14,6 @@ sources: Operating systems let people enlarge text system-wide, and on mobile browsers that setting has historically had no reliable effect on a web page's root font size. `` is the opt-in that changes this: it makes the root element's initial `font-size` scale in proportion to the OS and browser text-size settings, so a layout written in `rem` and font-size keywords grows with the user's preference — including `@media` breakpoints expressed in `rem`, which then move with the text rather than stranding it. It also turns off the browser's own text-autosizing heuristics, and on desktop it populates `env(preferred-text-scale)`. The default, `legacy`, is what every page gets today. -This is exactly the shape of thing the spec covers: a single element in the ``, checkable from outside, whose "why" is about visitors rather than developers. It is not a build technique. What rules it out for now is the state of the definition and the state of support. The normative text lives in an Editor's Draft of CSS Fonts Level 5 — the CSS Working Group's own header on that document says it is for discussion only and may change at any moment — and the attribute ships only in Chromium: Chrome, Edge and Chrome Android since version 146 in March 2026, plus WebView and Opera. Firefox and Safari have not implemented it, which is the half of the market where OS text-size settings are most often the user's only lever. +This fits the subject of the spec: a single element in the ``, checkable from outside, that helps pages respect a visitor's text-size preferences. Its definition appears in the published 13 September 2026 Working Draft of CSS Fonts Level 5 as well as the Editor's Draft. It remains work in progress, but draft status alone does not exclude an implemented feature here. We defer a spec page because browser support is still limited to Chromium-based implementations: Chrome, Edge, Chrome Android and Android WebView from version 146, plus Opera Android from version 97. MDN marks it experimental; Firefox and Safari have not implemented it. -The risk of writing the page early is not merely that the advice would be premature. Opting in is a commitment: MDN warns that a page carrying `content="scale"` must be tested against the full scaling range of its target platforms, which on mobile runs from 200% to beyond 300%. A spec entry telling sites to add one `` tag would understate that, and the honest version of the page — add the tag, then rebuild your layout to survive triple-size text — is advice about sizing in relative units, which [the viewport meta page](/spec/foundations/meta-viewport/) already reaches from the pinch-zoom side. Until a second engine makes the tag worth the retrofit, that is where the useful guidance lives. +Opting in also requires testing the layout: MDN warns that a page carrying `content="scale"` must support the full scaling range of its target platforms, typically 200% to beyond 300% on mobile. A future spec page should explain relative sizing and that testing obligation alongside the tag, since opting in disables existing browser text-sizing heuristics. Sites can already evaluate it for supported browsers, but we will revisit broader guidance when a second engine ships compatible behaviour. The existing [viewport meta page](/spec/foundations/meta-viewport/) covers preserving pinch zoom, a separate accessibility concern that this tag does not replace.