lazysizes respimg polyfill extension

While picturefill are full functional responsive images polyfills, the lazySizes respimg polyfill extension is only a partial polyfill, which supports only the most important subset of the native responsive images standard and only in conjunction with the lazySizes core script.

As a result it is an extreme fast and lightweight plugin.

// never try to import *.min.js files 
import lazySizes from 'lazysizes';
import 'lazysizes/plugins/respimg/ls.respimg';

constrained Markup support

This plugin supports both art directed responsive images using the picture element as also resolution switching based on data-srcset using the width descriptor (and of course the combination of both).

What is not supported:

• The use of explicit density descriptors (x descriptor) are not supported (This should not be a problem, because all use cases of the density descriptor can always also be substituted with a width descriptor).
• If data-srcset with width descriptors (w descriptor) are used either the data-sizes="auto" feature has to be used or the sizes value has to consist of just one source size value with the CSS px unit.
• If picture is used the img element should not have a srcset/data-srcset attribute, instead the last source element should/can be used without a media and type attribute.
• The use of the source[type] attribute is not automatically supported, but can be manually added by overriding the lazySizesConfig.supportsType option callback function.
• The use of the source[media] is supported for all browsers, which do support matchMedia. To add full support for IE9 and other legacy browsers a window.matchMedia polyfill or Modernizr.mq (Modernizr Media Queries) can be used.

What is fully supported

Aside from above mentioned constraints everything else is fully supported. Here are some practical examples of fully supported responsive images:

<script>
window.lazySizesConfig = window.lazySizesConfig || {};
//in case you want to use custom media query aliases in your markup, instead of full media queries
window.lazySizesConfig.customMedia = {
    '--small': '(max-width: 480px)',
    '--medium': '(max-width: 700px)',
    '--large': '(max-width: 1400px)'
};
</script>


<!-- use of width descriptor + data-sizes="auto" -->


<!-- picture with one implicit density descriptor per srcset -->
<picture>
	<!--[if IE 9]><audio><![endif]-->
	<source
		data-srcset="http://placehold.it/500x600/11e87f/fff"
		media="--small" />
	<source
		data-srcset="http://placehold.it/700x300"
		media="--medium" />
	<source
		data-srcset="http://placehold.it/1400x600/e8117f/fff"
		media="--large" />
	<source
    	    data-srcset="http://placehold.it/1800x900/117fe8/fff" />
    <!--[if IE 9]></audio><![endif]-->
    
</picture>

<!-- picture with explicit w descriptors and data-sizes="auto" -->
<picture>
	<!--[if IE 9]><audio><![endif]-->
	<source
		data-srcset="http://placehold.it/500x600/11e87f/fff 500w,
		    http://placehold.it/750x900/11e87f/fff 750w"
		media="--small" />
	<source
		data-srcset="http://placehold.it/700x300 700w,
			http://placehold.it/1050x450 1050w"
		media="--medium" />
	<source
		data-srcset="http://placehold.it/1400x600/e8117f/fff 1400w,
			http://placehold.it/2100x900/e8117f/fff 2100w"
		media="--large" />
	<source
	    data-srcset="http://placehold.it/1800x900/117fe8/fff 1800w,
	    	http://placehold.it/2700x1350/117fe8/fff 2700w" />
	<!--[if IE 9]></audio><![endif]-->
	
</picture>

<!-- use of width descriptors + simple sizes value with px unit -->

Tip: Using/Generating more complex dynamic sizes

As explained above this partial polyfill only accepts one value for sizes using only the px length. Due to the fact, that also data-sizes="auto" is supported the lazybeforesizes event can be used to dynamically change/add different sizes:

document.addEventListener('lazybeforesizes', function(e){
	//calculate the size as a number
	e.detail.width =  yourCalculation(e.target) || e.detail.width;
});