Twenty Nineteen: Introduce better theme support for responsive images

[kjellr]

As originally reported by @mor10, in the Twenty Nineteen GitHub repository:

​https://github.com/WordPress/twentynineteen/issues/50

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Currently, for images inserted within posts, the sizes attribute of the responsive images markup does not map to the actual displayed width of images.

According to my tests (using a 1920x1080px non-aligned image, inserted via Gutenberg (and set to Image Size: Full):

The sizes markup is output as:
(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px

• At viewports <300px: A 300px image is loaded
• At viewports >300px: A 768px image is loaded
• At viewports >768px: A 1024px image is loaded
• At viewports >1024px: A 1568px image is loaded
• At viewports >1568px: The original 1980px image is loaded

Since this is not a full-width image, each of those image sizes is actually wider than necessary, resulting in a larger file size.

For a more specific example: at a screen width of 1024px, this non-aligned sample image is loaded in at 1568px wide. As per theme rules, it actually appears only 700px wide in the layout. On a non-retina screen, there's no need to load a 1568px image for a 700px space.

Twenty Nineteen should include some theme-specific markup to properly assign sizes values that map to theme styles. This was done in Twenty Seventeen for instance:

​https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/blob/master/wp-content/themes/twentyseventeen/functions.php#L491-L517

At the time of writing, this issue is blocked by Gutenberg: We can currently issue a custom sizes attribute for non-aligned images like the example above, but it is not currently possible to have the theme customize the sizes attribute for full/wide images. See the following GitHub issues for reference:

​https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/6131

​https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/6177

​https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/11973

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I'm including patches ported over from two of @mor10's PRs on the original Twenty Nineteen repository:

Modifying the sizes attribute for non-aligned body images (This currently causes negative results for full and wide images)

​https://github.com/WordPress/twentynineteen/pull/701

45985-regular-images.patch​

Adding custom sizes attributes, including wide and full variants (This is dependent on ​Gutenberg #11973 being merged):

​https://github.com/WordPress/twentynineteen/pull/629

45985-all-images.patch​

[kjellr]

There are many more details in the linked threads, but @mor10: feel free to add anything that I may have missed.

Thank you!

[vishalkakadiya]

We are already working on the task related to this ticket, so we may need to discuss this task before starting on it. Thanks!

CC @mukesh27

[vishalkakadiya]

@kjellr Thank you for opening this ticket!

I checked your patch for the regular images, and it is working fine. But, can you explain the below condition there?

if ( 767 <= $width ) {

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Adding custom sizes attributes, including wide and full variants (This is dependent on Gutenberg #11973 being merged):

Also, I think the ticket number(11973) is looking incorrect to me or let me know if I'm understanding it incorrectly.

Thank you!

[kjellr]

Hey @vishalkakadiya, thanks for taking a look. The patches on this ticket were ported over from @mor10's GitHub PR, created when Twenty Nineteen was originally built:

​https://github.com/WordPress/twentynineteen/pull/701

I'm not sure of the details of this patch personally anymore (it's a few years old now! 😅) but it's possible @mor10 can help provide more info if you're still interested in pushing it forward.

Thanks!

[sabernhardt]

(I corrected the link to GB11973, which was not merged)

[karmatosed]

I am not sure what the current status is on this but due to the time it has sat and the partial work, I would recommend closing or a refresh. For now, going to suggest we get some thoughts to then get the next steps worked out for this issue.

cc @sabernhardt and @vishalkakadiya. When you are considering what to do consider this theme has been live for a while and we are focusing on bugs not enhancements at this point.

[sabernhardt]

The situation seems the same as it was years ago.

• I inserted a 2000-pixel wide image in a standard width Image block and set the image to Full Size.
• I then duplicated the block twice and set those to Wide and Full width.
• All three images had the sizes="(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px" attribute.
• When using a 1920 monitor, the browser loaded the full 2000-pixel image.
• When using a 1366 monitor, the browser loaded a 1536-pixel image.

I have the same sizes attribute when switching to Twenty Twenty and Twenty Twenty-One (and likely other themes), so editing for only one theme might not be worth much.

[karmatosed]

Ok based on this I am going to close just on one single theme. Thank you everyone.