Responsive css styles on mobile devices ONLY

Question

I'm trying to make my responsive CSS styles work only on tablets and smartphones. Basically I have a style for desktop, a style for mobile: portrait and a style for mobile: landscape. I don't want the mobile styles interfering with the desktop presentation at all. I have played around with countless media queries, but the result either the mobile styles are getting displayed on the desktop, or the mobile styles are displaying only on mobile devices but with only one set of rules (non-responsive). Is there a way I can keep the two completely separate?

My code I have right now goes like this:

/* regular desktop styles */

@media only screen 
and (max-device-width: 600px)
 { ... }

/* mobile only styles when the device is 0-600px in maximum width */

@media only screen 
and (max-device-width: 1000px)
{ ... }

/* mobile only styles when the device is up to 1000px in maximum width */

Answer 1

Why not use a media query range.

I'm currently working on a responsive layout for my employer and the ranges I'm using are as follows:

You have your main desktop styles in the body of the CSS file (1024px and above) and then for specific screen sizes I'm using:

@media all and (min-width:960px) and (max-width: 1024px) {
  /* put your css styles in here */
}

@media all and (min-width:801px) and (max-width: 959px) {
  /* put your css styles in here */
}

@media all and (min-width:769px) and (max-width: 800px) {
  /* put your css styles in here */
}

@media all and (min-width:569px) and (max-width: 768px) {
  /* put your css styles in here */
}

@media all and (min-width:481px) and (max-width: 568px) {
  /* put your css styles in here */
}

@media all and (min-width:321px) and (max-width: 480px) {
  /* put your css styles in here */
}

@media all and (min-width:0px) and (max-width: 320px) {
  /* put your css styles in here */
}

This will cover pretty much all devices being used - I would concentrate on getting the styling correct for the sizes at the end of the range (i.e. 320, 480, 568, 768, 800, 1024) as for all the others they will just be responsive to the size available.

Also, don't use px anywhere - use em's or %.

Answer 2

What's you've got there should be fine to work, but there is no actual "Is Mobile/Tablet" media query so you're always going to be stuck.

There are media queries for common breakpoints , but with the ever changing range of devices they're not guaranteed to work moving forwards.

The idea is that your site maintains the same brand across all sizes, so you should want the styles to cascade across the breakpoints and only update the widths and positioning to best suit that viewport.

To further the answer above, using Modernizr with a no-touch test will allow you to target touch devices which are most likely tablets and smart phones, however with the new releases of touch based screens that is not as good an option as it once was.

Answer 3

I had to solve a similar problem--I wanted certain styles to only apply to mobile devices in landscape mode. Essentially the fonts and line spacing looked fine in every other context, so I just needed the one exception for mobile landscape. This media query worked perfectly:

@media all and (max-width: 600px) and (orientation:landscape) 
{
    /* styles here */
}

Answer 4

Yes, this can be done via javascript feature detection ( or browser detection , e.g. Modernizr ) . Then, use yepnope.js to load required resources ( JS and/or CSS )