Mobile browsers

detection and proper content

[too much information]

I'm about to start an alternate version of my site that will be specifically for mobile browsers. It won't be a full copy of the site, but it will give access to key features.

What I need to know is, does anyone has a full user agent list for mobile browsers? Or can you at least post a few user agent strings that you know of along with what content the browser can display? I think we need a comprehensive list if there isn't one available.

Also, what content is mobile browser safe? Can I show images, Javascripts, forms, etc? Can I set cookies? Will their IP change as they browse? What should I expect?

[too much information]

Hasn't anyone written a page for a mobile browser?

Can anyone at least tell me how many pixels wide I should plan my pages for?

[giles]

If you're using css, the standards based solution is media="handheld". There's differing levels of support for this though, so be prepared for a lot of testing.

No standard screen size I'm afraid - they're all too different.

[Lexur]

I think the mobile companies are doing too well with SMS and stupid and simplistic multimedia content for teenagers and nobody cares for WAP or mobile internet. That's the only explanation for the lack of standards but the academic and useless proposal-for-project-to-commitee-test-pre-version-of-non-mandatory-recommendation lost in some obscure page of the w3c site.

[Brett_Tabke]

Screen sizes are all over the place - so think liquid layout:

login first:
[webmasterworld.com...]

on the desktop - use Opera. Then press shift-f11 to see your site in a pda browser...

> Also, what content is mobile browser safe?

basically text is it...

> Can I show images

yes. keep them small.

> Javascripts

mostly no. Opera can though...

> forms

yes. All.

>Can I set cookies?

most yes.

> Will their IP change as they browse?

Rare - but it can happen from some services.

> What should I expect?

bare minimum of functionality.

That said - this was posted from my phone/pda. I can run 100% of WebmasterWorld from my phone.

ck out yahoo for a good example:
[wap.oa.yahoo.com...]

[gibbergibber]

The development of mobile devices is moving so fast that you'd really have to think about what kind of mobile device you expect your target audience to have.

The very latest smartphones can display websites almost exactly like a PC, even down to Flash compatibility on some models, so it's possible that you only need one site.

The oldest internet-linked phones can only display small amounts of text, so you'd have to do a very compact text-only version of your site if you want total compatibility with all possible phones.

In between these two extremes the main restriction on mobile sites IMHO is the page width and the use of javascript and flash. If you make a site work with a very narrow page width (about 150 to 200 pixels) and remove any java and flash elements, it should be okay on most modern phones.

Slightly older phones might have difficulty with long passages of text, so try and split these up across several pages if these older phones are likely to be used by your visitors.

For an example of a full-on site and a mobile-friendly equivalent, try going to the BBC News website, and then click on the "low graphics" link at the top. There's also an even more cut-down version which automatically appears if you access the site on a mobile phone.

[StupidScript]

A nice resource for mobile user-agent strings (and a couple of chuckles) can be found at Zytrax [zytrax.com].

There's some good advice about this available at Cantoni.org [cantoni.org], too.

Honestly, it's probably easier to check for regular browsers then dump everyone else into the mobile pile than it is to do the reverse. Just like the good ol' days ... fancy browsers, this way ... the rest of you get text.

On the flip side, check for the operating system, not the browser. Windows CE is always going to be some kind of mobile device, as is Palm OS. WinNT probably won't be, with the notable exception of bSquare.

Hasn't anyone written a page for a mobile browser?

I made a quite nice web-based WAP/PHP/MySQL calendaring system for the attorneys who work for our company a few years ago. It's drawn from the 'normal' system the office workers access in their browsers. Same data, but the tags surrounding that data are dynamically generated and broken up for proper viewing based on the limited set of UAs their common (predictable) cellphone brands provide.