Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Design and Content : Rant :: Web Development

[BigBison]

I know you're all sick of hearing it, but I've been around the web development block a few times having started in 1993. Since then, two things have been constant: change and undated documents.

I've been trying to figure out how to develop a Cellphone/PDA version of my sites. There have been many different standards, like HDML, WML, WAP 1&2, from so many different vendors that I'll just stick with XHTML Basic and divert all WAP devices to it. I already know how to do this, but here's a page that gets it totally wrong for current phones from the same company whose undated page this is:

http://developer.openwave.com/dvl/su...faq_wsconf.htm

I'm really not singling out OpenWave or even the small-screen set. Over and over, when researching anything having to do with web development, I come across pages which are inexplicably undated. Web Development Blogs and w3c get it right, why can't the developers and manufacturers of the products? While the future of standards-based development holds promise that the things we're doing today may remain valid in five years' time, up to this point anything written about the web has been lucky to remain relevant for more than a year or two.

So why isn't any of it dated? At least a "last updated on" date, and by that I don't mean "today because we just added Google ads to this obsolete **** that ranks well because it's outdated" either, for chrissakes!
</rant>

[the_pm]

Like everything, you gotta pick and choose your resources carefully. Out of curiousity, what are you trying to create for cell phones and PDAs that goes beyond just serving good markup? What types of functionality are you trying to incorporate into your site that won't work otherwise? I'm always interested in getting a peek at your latest quests

[BigBison]

You have to bear in mind that I'm targeting the RVer market, many of my future cutomers will undoubtedly interact with my business via cellphone. The webmail I will use (VisualOffice) is already WAP compliant, for example -- that's probably the primary use.

All I'm doing is writing a script to strip out the tags like <HR> that aren't displayed on handhelds, basically converting XHTML1.1 to XHTML Basic for now and not worrying about WAP just yet.

You may also be aware of my fixed-width design, which would force horizontal scrolling on small screens. Mainly, I'll be making a "handheld" profile for my site that presents things as a single column, rather than adding functionality.

[the_pm]

Hmm, I've always thought handheld devices were pretty good at converting site layout to a format that fits on their own as Opera would suggest, but then again my experience with handheld devices is somewhat limited. Again, I'm interested to see where your adventures lead!

[BigBison]

No, they aren't. I own a Sharp Zaurus with embedded Linux and Opera. Like other handheld devices that think they understand CSS, the tendency is for data in the right-hand column of a multicol site to be about 3 characters wide, with everything wrapping and scrolling down. Unreadable.

So why not give the handhelds XHTML Basic? Read the spec, that one makes lots and lots of sense for handheld devices. Bear in mind also that WAP devices DO understand "application/xhtml+xml" and parse XML, whereas PDAs like the Zaurus DO NOT. Thus, there are two types of handhelds -- those that WAP and those that don't -- which makes a huge difference.

Here's the UA string from Opera on the Zaurus:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Linux 2.4.18-rmk7-pxa3-embedix armv5tel; 480x640) Opera 6.0 [en]

If you ever need to talk someone out of using a browser-detection script, ask them what their script will make of the above string. You'll either see Opera 2.4 (please upgrade your browser) or MSIE 5, or Opera 6. The Opera 6-returning scripts also mistakenly assume it's a DOM-compliant browser.

Anyway, by providing an XHTML Basic version, I don't have to worry about the FACT that all these small browsers each have unique, nonstandard methods of "making a site fit on the small screen". I'd rather empower myself as a designer, and not attempt to duplicate large-screen designs at 240x320. The screens are only "480x640" in hideous emulated mode with horizontal scrolling.

[BigBison]

plhhosting.com holds up pretty well on the Zaurus. In your case, it's the middle column that is condensed to three words wide, becoming nigh unreadable. Let me guess -- that's your fluid column, the left and right being fixed-width?

That's exactly where the handhelds and you disagree on site design. What you need is a second stylesheet, for handhelds, which puts that login above or below the main content instead of as its own column. Embedded Opera should then make your content column widest, forcing a horizontal scroll to fully view the right-hand column.

Of course, I can toggle Opera for "stacked" mode, which disables horizontal scrolling and unstyles the content, for the most part. Makes plhhosting much more readable, but a lot less pretty. I'm not far enough along to know much more than this about the "handheld" media option in CSS, but there are several sites out there which have impressed me with their 240px, no-horizontal-scroll, well-styled sites. "Dive Into Mark" may be one, IIRC.

[the_pm]

Yep, you nailed it The middle column is the fluid one. I've toyed with handheld stylesheets - in fact, I have a couple of emails in with the gentleman who created Blazer Browser, the Web browser used by the Treo cell phone and other Palm products. I'm pushing for a PC compilable (or online simluation) version of Blazer Browser for testing purposes. I'll let you know if I get any results.

I've never been too concerns with sites being pretty in handheld devices. "Highly functional" is a standard I'd like to achieve, but I think handheld media are a bit behind the times when it comes to accepting W3C standards. Again, I'll report back if I have any news.

[BigBison]

That's the other problem. In order to properly develop for handhelds, you need to either download each browser's screen emulator for your desktop, or read throught their undated documentation, to which no alternative exists! What we need is a service like Browsercam for these things.

So, I've decided to say to hell with the manufacturers and their emulators. I will offer my site in standards-compliant XHTML Basic with CSS Mobile Profile, as well as a CSS Mobile Profile-compliant "handheld" alternative in the XHTML1.1 and HTML4.01 versions of my site. The vendors can come around to complying with those standards better, instead of requiring me to test in their emulator-of-the-month. Really, these technologies are changing too rapidly to worry about minor differences between platforms and versions. Just use the lightweight standards -- they're "snapshots" of current usage which are likely to keep you out of trouble.

Which brings me back to my rant. These technologies are changing constantly. Openwave, Blazer, HipTop and their ilk are the worst transgressors about not dating their documentation. Absolutely silly, when you realize those emulators come out just about the time as the new breed of phones that everyone (for reasons unknown to me) rushes to purchase, which of course display things differently than the current (obsolete) emulator. But don't try the documentation to find out what's changed, either -- coulda been written back in y2k for all the hapless web developer knows.

[BigBison]

WML Script has been replaced by ECMAScript Compact Profile (ES-CP), like the other modern WAP protocols it's a subset of something web designers are already familiar with.

http://www.ecma-international.org/pu...s/Ecma-327.htm

The only two things (I think) you need to worry about are "Decks" and "Cards", which are WAP extensions for XHTML Basic. WAP 1 was XML based, but utilized its own DOCTYPE -- WML, and its own scripting language, WML Script. WAP 2 doesn't use WML, specifying instead XHTML Basic, CSS-MP and ES-CP.

This information was awfully hard to come by. Here's a pretty good breakdown on the technology, undated of course yet obviously obsolete. Still, it makes good reading.

http://www.perfectxml.com/Conf/Wrox/...owell2text.pdf

D'oh! If you get serious about WAP development, get used to everything being in PDF files so they can't be read on any mobile devices...

D'oh!d'oh! Those PDFs are, of course, password-protected because we wouldn't want anybody to read them and make their site WAP-compatible, would we?

D'oh!D'oh!D'oh! The OMA/wapforum.org industry association website, where those password-protected PDFs reside, hasn't updated its copyright or content since at least 2002. There's not actually anything publicly-accessible on that site that even mentions WAP 2 in passing!

As you can see, the information required to develop a WAP site is the most closely-guarded secret of the cellphone industry.

[BigBison]

What I'm trying to avoid is a situation like this:

http://www.osnews.com/

Check out the line of supported-browser icons at the bottom, each linking to a specific version of the site! Egads!

AvantGo -- WAP -- OpenWave -- HipTop -- Klip -- (Not to mention one for Lynx, but no Blazer...)

Ridiculous, and expensive to design let alone maintain. Is this the way the handheld manufacturers expect people to surf the web? Look at the bottom of the page (which presumably won't look right until this option is selected) for the logo to the browser-specific version that's right for the user? This is why standards evolved from the browser wars IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!

[BigBison]

Now that's better! Check out this little embedded browser called NetFront. I'll post a different link in a nearby thread in a minute, stay tuned. Look at how they list all the standards the browser is compatible with, front and center, just the way I like it!

http://www.access-us-inc.com/Prod_NetFront_nf_mcs.html

[the_pm]

Ooh, I likes! Now that's the type of browser I'd want on my handheld device! I lke any type of device that rewards the conscientious developer for a job well done

The only reason you won't see a big fuss made in the general development community over handheld standards is that it's still peripheral enough to not be a major focus for developers. But I've been ranting for a long time that it's a growing market, and it's only going to grow bigger and stronger. And developers must be ready for this market trend if they want to play with the bog boys (or be one of the big boys in the future).