Designing a site for mobile and normal browsers

How do I design a site so users can view it in mobile or normal browsers?

[uprightcomm]

I have a client who has users that view their site using both normal browsers and mobile. Do I need to design a separate site for mobile or is there a certain way I can modify my current site so as not to lose the look, but to make it display best in a mobile device?

[HelenDev]

Yes, you can use media="handheld" to serve a special stylesheet to mobile devices only.

You may not be able to get it to display 100% as you would like, due I think to the differences between devices, but you can definitely use it to make some improvements.

[benihana]

how reliably do devices accept that attribute value?

Im specc'ing a new site at the mo and would like to be able to use this, but was under the impression it wasnt widely implemented.

[HelenDev]

Well, we have two PDAs in our office, and both seem to take notice of the handheld stylesheet.

There are some small issues, most notably regarding the display of tables (which I've started another thread for), but for the most part, the stylesheet seems to work OK.

Earlier today I was doing some reading on this and came across a post here which said that the media="handheld" attribute was only supported by a minority of devices, but that post was 2 years old, so I'm hoping that's no longer the case...?

[benihana]

thanks!