Re: [WSG] Javascript to check for Handheld Devices
Once I saw a Nokia trying to serve a wide (media=screen) CSS, I solved it using a media=handheld stylesheet, almost empty. It would be a problem if these little devices are trying to load the 'screen' sheet, do you have handheld specific defined sheets in your code? Sorry to ask, but if it doesn't help you then it'll help me. Best regards; Eugenio Costa. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Javascript to check for Handheld Devices
On 2 Mar 2007, at 14:15:31, TuteC wrote: Once I saw a Nokia trying to serve a wide (media=screen) CSS, I solved it using a media=handheld stylesheet, almost empty. It would be a problem if these little devices are trying to load the 'screen' sheet, do you have handheld specific defined sheets in your code? Sorry to ask, but if it doesn't help you then it'll help me. Just to add to the general flow of information here: Microsoft's IE Mobile, which is used on phones and handhelds (e.g. iPaq PDAs) running Windows Mobile (formerly Windows CE), will apply stylesheets of media type screen *AND* handheld. This means that any rules in the screen stylesheet which must not apply on the handheld device _must_ be explicitly overridden, which is a bad thing as obviously one wants to keep the handheld download as small as possible. (Note that IE Mobile is not the same as IE for normal Windows - it's a totally different and, in certain other respects, more standards- compliant browser.) When I raised this with the IE Mobile team last year, their attitude was basically that as their kit had always done that, they couldn't change it for fear of breaking existing stuff. (One team member also commented that his current PDA had an 800x600 screen, so was perfectly capable of handling a lot of screen styling. I didn't bother pointing out that we don't all get the latest kit supplied by a rich employer like MS, nor do we all get the kind of salaries MS offer to waste on gadgets.) They did admit that they weren't quite sure why they'd missed out the button element when they implemented HTML 4.01 several years ago, but apparently it's now in very recent versions. Just to add to the fun, IE Mobile offers several rendering modes - honour the source, put everything in a narrow column no matter what, and something in between, as far as I can tell. Some of these will ignore various aspects of both the markup and the styling to try to get everything to fit. These work in ways that I have never found any meaningful documentation for, although in at least one rendering mode it will apply its own styles for certain elements (e.g. ul) in a way that will override anything you try to do. It also supports switching from landscape to portrait mode, under the user's control, so you can't make any assumptions about the screen dimensions, or whether the screen is wider than it is tall or not. Finally, the manufacturer of the equipment (phone, PDA, whatever) can make their own low-level configuration changes to the IE install, and select which options can be overridden by the user. So one device may allow the user to select the rendering mode to use while another only ever allows the use of one rendering mode - usually the one which leads to the most unpredictable results. On the bright side, recent (version 5 upwards, I think, which is about 18 months - 2 years old) do support the use of XMLHttpRequest (via the MSXML ActiveX approach). Ain't life wonderful... HTH, Nick. -- Nick Fitzsimons http://www.nickfitz.co.uk/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
[WSG] Javascript to check for Handheld Devices
Hi I'm currently developing a stylesheet for handheld devices. However while testing I have noticed that the javascript I've written for screen browsers is still being implemented while testing with handhelds, causing a few problems. Does anyone have any advice on how I can check if the device accessing the page is handheld or screen and offer up the relevant javascript? Thanks Lee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Javascript to check for Handheld Devices
Will major search engines for phones take any notice of javascript? Google http://www.google.com/xhtml/ Ask http://m.ask.com/ They ignore stylesheets even if you make one for small screens! They strip the page headers of meta tags, linked javascript gone is my guess? Should we give up making pages for small screen? Just W3C validate and accessibility test. Some user agents in server logs show a different user agent phone type like nokia et al. Tim On 01/03/2007, at 8:25 PM, Lee Powell wrote: Hi I'm currently developing a stylesheet for handheld devices. However while testing I have noticed that the javascript I've written for screen browsers is still being implemented while testing with handhelds, causing a few problems. Does anyone have any advice on how I can check if the device accessing the page is handheld or screen and offer up the relevant javascript? Thanks Lee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** The Editor Heretic Press http://www.hereticpress.com Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Javascript to check for Handheld Devices
Tim wrote: My meta tag base href were taken out of pages by ask.com the mobile version http://m.ask.com/ This allowed them to run my site by relative URLs on their server with fake paypal links en all. Jesus, that's horrible! Excuse my ignorance. It seems then, that all the best opportunities for designers to optimise for small devices and screen readers are being usurped by the developers. Do they really know better? Regards, Barney *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Javascript to check for Handheld Devices
They know better I recokon (Aust drawl accent LOL) All we have to do is validate and accesibilitise :-) No, sorry Barney for the pun, I hate the reality I want to make mobile phone stylesheets that will be observed. Javascript and anything else as the Guttenberg designer said to the Pope Tim On 01/03/2007, at 10:47 PM, Barney Carroll wrote: Tim wrote: My meta tag base href were taken out of pages by ask.com the mobile version http://m.ask.com/ This allowed them to run my site by relative URLs on their server with fake paypal links en all. Jesus, that's horrible! Excuse my ignorance. It seems then, that all the best opportunities for designers to optimise for small devices and screen readers are being usurped by the developers. Do they really know better? Regards, Barney *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** The Editor Heretic Press http://www.hereticpress.com Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Javascript to check for Handheld Devices
On 1/03/2007, at 10:25 PM, Lee Powell wrote:
Does anyone have any advice on how I can check if the device
accessing the page is handheld or screen and offer up the relevant
javascript?
Best bet - create a mobile specific domain... failing that you could
test for an arbitrary property:
if (screen.width 640) {
// your code
}
kind regards
Terrence Wood
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Re: [WSG] Javascript to check for Handheld Devices
Barney Carroll wrote: Excuse my ignorance. It seems then, that all the best opportunities for designers to optimise for small devices and screen readers are being usurped by the developers. Do they really know better? In most cases, sadly they do. The vast majority of sites can't be viewed on mobile devices without help. It seems that there's at least a perception of lack of interest in developing CSS for them. Of course, their lack of CSS support might be why. Which came first: the chicken or the egg? *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Javascript to check for Handheld Devices
This should not happen with Opera browsers (Opera Mini and Opera Mobile). We specifically ask Google and other search engines not to give us transcoded results when our users search using their search engines. If they do then it is a bug and we want to know about it so we can ask them to correct this behaviour. For styling the page handheld stylesheets should be used. For JavaScript issues I don't know of a way to specifically detect if it is a handheld, and browser sniffing is far from ideal on mobile due to many reasons. Tim do you have a specific example of what issues are being caused, then I can look into them? Also which browsers are you testing on. Some mobile browsers have very poor JavaScript support. Browsers such as Opera Mobile have full JavaScript support. Opera mini is slightly more restricted in that it uses a client server architecture, so there is no AJAX, but by developing using progressive enhancement it should work, depending on how complex the site is you are trying to develop. On 1 Mar 2007, at 12:30, Tim wrote: Barney, some mobile phone opimisation search engine versions for phones DO remove meta tags on the fly. My meta tag base href were taken out of pages by ask.com the mobile version http://m.ask.com/ This allowed them to run my site by relative URLs on their server with fake paypal links en all. They do remove meta tags Barney in at least some mobile search engines. Google mobile disables form, http://m.ask.com/ does not. Tim On 01/03/2007, at 9:42 PM, Barney Carroll wrote: Tim wrote: Will major search engines for phones take any notice of javascript? Google http://www.google.com/xhtml/ Ask http://m.ask.com/ Tim, why would this be a problem? Google isn't a handheld device, it's a search engine. It doesn't matter what /it/ thinks. And if you're afraid it messes with pages it links to, that isn't the case. Regards, Barney *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** The Editor Heretic Press http://www.hereticpress.com Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** David Storey Chief Web Opener Opera Software Oslo, Norway W: http://my.opera.com/dstorey ✉ : [EMAIL PROTECTED] ✆ : +47 24 16 42 26 *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Javascript to check for Handheld Devices
David Storey wrote:
For styling the page handheld stylesheets should be used. For
JavaScript issues I don't know of a way to specifically detect if it is
a handheld, and browser sniffing is far from ideal on mobile due to many
reasons.
Could you give an element a specific style in the handheld stylesheet
and then test for that style being applied in the javascript? I'm
thinking along the lines of:
in screen.css:
#checker {width:1px;}
in handheld.css:
#checker {width:2px;}
in script.js:
var el = document.getElementById(“checker”);
if (window.getComputedStyle(el,).getPropertyValue(width) == '2px' )
{
/* handheld script goes here
No idea if it would execute in whatever handheld browser is needed, and
my brief research indicates this style grabbing in javascript is a bit
flaky cross browser even on the desktop, but you might be able to hack
something together that works a lot of the time.
Rob
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RE: [WSG] Javascript to check for Handheld Devices
Hi David,
In my experience, you can't guarantee that a mobile device will be a full
fledged 'browser' (like Opera mini or Safari for the iPhone), so you don't know
if JS will be supported on a handheld device. This may be less likely now, but
is still valid.
Example: About 3 - 4 years ago I had a Palm based Kyocera which did a pretty
good job of rendering HTML (including allowing you to submit form data), but
had no JS or CSS support.
Is there anything wrong with using something like:
@media handheld { /* insert rules here */ }
http://developer.openwave.com/documentation/xhtml_mp_css_reference/css-ref5.html#669571
Also, this may be helpful:
http://developer.openwave.com/documentation/xhtml_mp_css_reference/
Let us know what you think,
Paul
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Re: [WSG] Javascript to check for Handheld Devices
Search Engines don't read JavaScript but the question wasn't about search. Lots of mobile devices think that they are actually screen browsers so this may be causing some problems - My phone (Nokia N73) has 2 browsers; one that reads handheld sheets and one that reads screen sheets. Can I ask what javascript you are trying to serve that would be different on a handheld browser rather than a screen browser? Ben On 01/03/07, Tim [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Will major search engines for phones take any notice of javascript? Google http://www.google.com/xhtml/ Ask http://m.ask.com/ They ignore stylesheets even if you make one for small screens! They strip the page headers of meta tags, linked javascript gone is my guess? Should we give up making pages for small screen? Just W3C validate and accessibility test. Some user agents in server logs show a different user agent phone type like nokia et al. Tim On 01/03/2007, at 8:25 PM, Lee Powell wrote: Hi I'm currently developing a stylesheet for handheld devices. However while testing I have noticed that the javascript I've written for screen browsers is still being implemented while testing with handhelds, causing a few problems. Does anyone have any advice on how I can check if the device accessing the page is handheld or screen and offer up the relevant javascript? Thanks Lee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** The Editor Heretic Press http://www.hereticpress.com Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** -- e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] w: http://www.bendodson.com/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Javascript to check for Handheld Devices
No idea if it would execute in whatever handheld browser is needed, and my brief research indicates this style grabbing in javascript is a bit flaky cross browser even on the desktop, but you might be able to hack something together that works a lot of the time. flaky would be an understatement... what if the browser can't execute javascript? what proportion of mobile phones can execute javascript?... I don't think many can Some phones do support css but a lot don't ... so the page should be designed to be usable without it. (and I am talking about phones new enough to be able to read xhtml - not older models that can only do wml) *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Javascript to check for Handheld Devices
FYI, apologies, if it this has already been posted here, From: Dominique Hazael-Massieux [EMAIL PROTECTED] (sorry for cross-posting, please follow-up on [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Hello Mobile Web Fans, The recently chartered Mobile Web Test Suites Working Group [1] is seeking public feedback on one of its proposed deliverables : an open testing framework for the Mobile Web, testing mobile web user agents for the benefits of mobile web developers. The overall goal of such a framework would be to allow the community to understand better how mobile web user agents available today react to various authoring practices (CSS tricks, javascript compatibility, advanced markup techniques, etc). To that end, the Test Suites Working Group is looking at setting up a framework that would allow: * anybody to submit test cases that they think would help assess support of a specific technical point in user agents; a few groups and individuals have already started to collect some of these tests cases, and the Working Group would like to serve as a point of collection and development for these * anybody to submit test results based on the above mentioned test cases * anybody to consult the statistical results posted by the community; these could hopefully lead at the creation of compatibility tables as some have been developed in the desktop browser world The Working Group would review, select and possibly amend the test cases submissions to produce a blessed test suite that would get most of the focus, but may still hosts the other test cases in case they would help a more restricted community. Before we invest the time and effort required to make such a system possible, the Working Group would like to get feedback on this project, in particular to see how many of Web developers would be interested in contributing to that project, as well as using its results. To that end, we have set up a fairly short survey that shouldn't take you more than a few minutes to answer: http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/1/mwits/ The survey is open until March 16 (but please let me know if you think you'll need more time). We would also appreciate if subscribers to these lists could forward that request for feedback to other relevant groups and communities as they see adequate, including blogging about it if they see this as a relevant topic for their audience. The level of answers we'll get on this survey will also help us assess the usefulness and the practicality of setting up such a system. Thank you for your time, Dom Mobile Web Test Suites WG co-chair 1. http://www.w3.org/2005/MWI/Tests/ -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au/itgovernance Telephone: 0414-869202 Ramin Communications Pty Ltd ABN: 027-089-713-084 *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
