Of late, I've been designing sites that are more responsive and I've been using CSS media queries frequently. One pattern I noticed is that the order in which the media queries are defined actually matters. I didn't test it in every single browser, but just on Chrome. Is there an explanation for this behaviour? Sometimes it gets frustrating when your site doesn't work as it should and you are unsure if it's the query or the order in which the query is written.
Here's an example:
HTML
<body>
<div class="one"><h1>Welcome to my website</h1></div>
<div class="two"><a href="#">Contact us</a></div>
</body>
CSS:
body{
font-size:1em; /* 16px */
}
.two{margin-top:2em;}
/* Media Queries */
@media (max-width: 480px) {
.body{font-size: 0.938em;}
}
/* iphone */
@media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2) {
body {font-size: 0.938em;}
}
/*if greater than 1280x800*/
@media (min-width: 1200px) {
.two{margin-top:8em;}
}
/*1024x600*/
@media (max-height: 600px) {
.two{margin-top:4em;}
}
/*1920x1024*/
@media (min-height: 1020px) {
.two{margin-top:9em;}
}
/*1366x768*/
@media (min-height: 750px) and (max-height: 770px) {
.two{margin-top:7em;}
}
However, If I wrote the query for 1024x600 in the last, the browser would ignore it and apply the margin value specified in the starting of the CSS (margin-top:2em).
/* Media Queries - Re-arranged version */
@media (max-width: 480px) {
.body{font-size: 0.938em;}
}
/* iphone */
@media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2) {
body {font-size: 0.938em;}
}
/*if greater than 1280x800*/
@media (min-width: 1200px) {
.two{margin-top:8em;}
}
/*1920x1024*/
@media (min-height: 1020px) {
.two{margin-top:9em;}
}
/*1366x768*/
@media (min-height: 750px) and (max-height: 770px) {
.two{margin-top:7em;}
}
/*1024x600*/
@media (max-height: 600px) {
.two{margin-top:4em;}
}
If my understanding of media queries are correct, the order shouldn't matter, but it seems it does. What could be the reason?