[thelist] CSS, standards and mobile device content (any experts?)

Paul Bennett paul at teltest.com
Sun Nov 9 14:59:28 CST 2003


Tom Dell'Aringa wrote:

><snip>
>
>Don’t get me wrong, I think we should encourage the use of CSS, just
>not position it as being able to solve most device problems today."
>
>I believe the Nextel phones support HTML 3.2.
>
>My point was not that CSS on its own solved these problems, but that
>the separation of content and style, and having well formed and valid
>XHTML allows you to re-purpose your content *without* re-authoring.
>
</snip>
Correct - 3rd generation mobile devices (commonly those also supporting 
MMS / PXT ) can display xhtml by using "mobile profile" xhtml
( http://www1.wapforum.org/tech/documents/WAP-277-XHTMLMP-20011029-a.pdf )
( http://developer.openwave.com/omdt/xhtml-mp-styleguide/Chapter1.html )

and mobile profile css

( http://www.w3.org/TR/css-mobile )

So the whole mobile internet experience is looking to become intergrated 
with the same markup language sets and presentation tools as desktop 
based web browsing. (Yay!)

//

>
>What I'm looking for is anyone who has actually done this. What tools
>did you use? XML? XSLT? What devices? Did you take XHTML and move it
>to something else? 
>
>Anything else anyone is willing to offer. We need to find out the
>best business solutions. My company is doing a lot of work in mobile
>tech and this is going to be important for us.
>  
>
At the moment, the uptake of 3G devices differs from country to country 
. If you can guarantee the device market you are catering for then (ie - 
your content is connected to a 3g sevice like Vodafone liuve) you can go 
the whole xhtml mp / css mp thing.
The web content / public application mobile device development area at 
the moment either sniffs browser type using tools such as wurfl 
(http://wurfl.sourceforge.net ) to determine device display capability 
or restricts access to content based on pre-determined devices that the 
application isdeveloped for. Both systems obviously have their problems.

As for the best solution, we may need to know alittle more about what 
you are wanting to develop in order to give advice.
ie: Who is the intended audience?
Are their any device guarantees, or is the target "any mobile device"?
Is the site / application for global use or is it location specific?
Is this content-based or application-based work?

=============================================
Paul Bennett
visit
http://www.clicksave.co.nz
For your free report:
"10 time-killing web development mistakes and how to avoid them"



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