[hot_gril]

Last time I wanted to make a simple static webpage, I thought just HTML/CSS would be enough. My friend wanted some background images that don't become stretched or cropped no matter what the window shape is. If there's some way to do this with CSS, I couldn't figure it out, while it was straightforward in React. Just took the window dimensions and calculated div sizing based on that. Even better, when we decided we actually wanted to use more vertical images when loading in a vertical window (perhaps a smartphone or a split window), that was easy in React.

I feel like HTML had a lot of assumptions around desktop PC usage.

[doomroot]

Hhmmm not sure how react helps here. I would love to see your code if you could share a gist?

[hot_gril]

I'll make one when I get home. IIRC: You'd scroll down vertically on the site, through divs with different backgrounds. The initial HTML/CSS approach was nothing special, just adjacent divs with background-image with background-size options, and I tried other tricks to no avail. The React approach was useWindowSize(), set div width to 100% or the screen width in px, set div height to (image aspect ratio) times width, set `background-size: 100% 100%` or the exact div width/height px.

[hot_gril]

Either ChatGPT has gotten better or I gave it a better prompt this time. It suggested this padding-bottom hack that sorta works but requires hardcoding aspect ratios, which I didn't want, but at least it demonstrates the layout we wanted with a Windows XP Bliss background image example:

  <style>

  .image-container {
    position: relative;
    width: 100%;
    height: 0;
    padding-bottom: 80.44%; /* h/w aspect ratio */
    background-image: url('https://d7hftxdivxxvm.cloudfront.net/?quality=80&resize_to=width&src=https%3A%2F%2Fartsy-media-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2F2RNK1P0BYVrSCZEy_Sd1Ew%252F3417757448_4a6bdf36ce_o.jpg&width=910');
    background-size: cover;
    background-position: center;
  }

  </style>

  <div class="image-container">hi</div>
  <div class="image-container">hi2</div>
  <div class="image-container">hi3</div>

Though it seems laggier than the React version when I resize, and this doesn't get into making the text resize to fit the divs...

[likeclockwork]

I don't know what the intended treatment of the text is, but did you consider using an img element and stacking the text on top of it?

What you have is basically just an image element with width: 100 height: auto, but it has children.

Here's an example, written with tailwind for my convenience but should be pretty legible to anyone who knows CSS:

    <div class="grid place-items-center [&>*]:[grid-area:1/1]">
      <img
        src="https://picsum.photos/500/400?grayscale&blur=2"
        class="w-full h-auto"
      />
      <div>Hello.</div>
    </div>
    <div class="grid place-items-center [&>*]:[grid-area:1/1]">
      <img
        src="https://picsum.photos/500/400?grayscale&blur=2"
        class="w-full h-auto"
      />
      <div>Hello.</div>
    </div>
    <div class="grid place-items-center [&>*]:[grid-area:1/1]">
      <img
        src="https://picsum.photos/500/400?grayscale&blur=2"
        class="w-full h-auto"
      />
      <div>Hello.</div>
    </div>

The height of the container is governed by the height of the image (until the text becomes taller than the image). You still have fully fleixible in terms placement (place-self) and/or sizing (height: 100%) of the text container.

[hot_gril]

Yeah, that worked, thanks! I didn't think to try that, probably because I don't typically go towards absolute positioning (I'm sorta n00b), but it makes sense now.

[likeclockwork]

Using grid like this isn't absolute positioning, we still have implicit sizing and regular document flow. We're just assigning the elements to the same grid area and letting that area be sized by its contents.

[willsmith72]

You mean object-fit contain?

[hot_gril]

That results in empty bars on the sides or top/bottom, which we didn't want. We wanted the div to resize to match the aspect ratio of the image. Realized my above comment wasn't clear about this, so I edited it.

[maliker]

That’s how react lures you in ;-)

[hot_gril]

Well HTML/CSS needs to do a better job luring then. The React way makes a lot more intuitive sense.

Then again my friend somehow got lured into installing Bootstrap.js, some React router, and frikin Redux to "solve" this before I told him no. But it's not like he understood what any of that did.