[Webkit-unassigned] [Bug 39455] <link> elements with media queries that do not affect the current page can be delayed

[bugzilla-daemon at webkit.org]

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=39455

--- Comment #7 from Vadim Makeev <pepelsbey at gmail.com> ---
I’d like to move my initial comment from the bug, closed as duplicate, so it won’t be lost.

Imagine a simple situation, two CSS files linked in the head:

    <link rel="stylesheet" href="screen.css">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="print.css" media="print">

Currently, WebKit will wait for both of them to be loaded before rendering anything at all. It makes sense since CSS is a render-blocking resource.

But the browser won’t use print.css for rendering because the implicit “screen” media type doesn’t match the “print” value. And it’s clear from the HTML parsing stage: this resource is not render-blocking.

Both Firefox and Chromium will keep loading print.css with lower priority and will start rendering once screen.css is available. It won’t save traffic but will make the page appear faster.

The same could be used not only for printing but for many different applications, that would make CSS performance better:

1. Color scheme: dark.css should not block rendering if the current scheme is light

<link rel="stylesheet" href="light.css" media="(prefers-color-scheme: light)">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="dark.css" media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)">

2. It could be possible to split CSS into separate files based on breakpoints

    <link rel="stylesheet" href="base.css">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="mobile.css" media="(max-width: 767px)">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="tablet.css" media="(min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 1023px)">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="desktop.css" media="(min-width: 1024px)">

3. It could be possible to offload some enhancements based on device properties or user preferences:

    <link rel="stylesheet" href="retina.css" media="(min-resolution: 2dppx)">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="heavy.css" media="(prefers-reduced-data: no-preference)">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="animation.css" media="(prefers-reduced-motion: no-preference)">

Well, it’s currently possible, but not in WebKit.

Here’s the demo with breakpoints:
https://pepelsbey.dev/articles/conditionally-adaptive/demo/index.html

And the article, exploring the idea to use this behavior:
https://pepelsbey.dev/articles/conditionally-adaptive/

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