1 Will the industry support handheld or ignore it?

Great write up. I have been using a handheld browser for a month or so and have noticed that standards-based sites are easier to load and read. I use webPro used on Palm.

My only concern is that I have read that some handheld browser developers are looking to make their products render a page so it would render like it would on your computer, using your screen css files, instead of the handheld css. Anyone else seen that?

posted at 04:51 pm on August 31, 2004 by Blake Scarbrough

2 A nice change of pace

I’ve been looking for a good article to point people to when it comes to handheld design, and I think this is a great starter. Nice work.

Blake (above), I believe that Microsoft is doing just what you proposed with PocketIE on the PocketPC. I don’t have access to a PPC though, so I wouldn’t know exactly how it works.

posted at 04:54 pm on August 31, 2004 by Vinnie Garcia

3 screenshots for those without handhelds

Great article. Would be nice to see accompanying screenshots grabbed from a handheld for those of us without connected handheld devices.

posted at 08:57 pm on August 31, 2004 by Rob

4 Good article

Good article indeed and I hope to see even more on subject of handheld devices.

Blake, I once tried Nokia 6220 for web browsing and this phone used the first css file found in the code. The layout, some colors, some backgrounds looked like in the browser of the computer — just narrow browser window and see what it looks like. Besides some text overlapped. In a word it was a mess :) If phone sometimes failed to load css file, the page looked OK.

posted at 12:16 am on September 1, 2004 by Mindaugas

5 Linearizing data tables?

The CSS rule to linearize layout tables is a good one (Do any regular readers of ALA still use layout tables though?) but, what about complex data tables? Using that rule would be disastrous for comprehension of the table.

Seems to me that the handheld user faces the same problem as blind users: linearizing data tables in a manner that makes sense. Seems to me that this is an issue that transcends CSS. HTML4 and XHTML have markup that, if properly supported, would aid greatly with this problem.

posted at 04:53 am on September 1, 2004 by Mr. Farlops

6 waste of time

these handheld machines are going to follow the same path laptops did 15 or 20 years ago. first the screens were not compatible with desktops available at the same time, and special workarounds were required to display data on the smalkler resolution screens. they sold a few laptops like that to early adopters, but laptops really took off only after they got 640×480 resolution, which DID match what was available in standard displays.

the same thing is going to happen with these handhelds. in my opinion it is a waste of time to design special code for smaller than usual screens. (unless you work for a company that makes them or uses them — and then you have to.) Simply wait for them to acquire 640×480. that is the solution.

posted at 05:21 am on September 1, 2004 by bk

7 Re: waste of time

While it is not in question that the technology will improve, there are still concerns with handheld devices that need addressed. A handheld device, by definition, will always be relatively small. If you try to display a 640×480 screen designed for a monitor at 2 inches wide, the text would be much too small to read. Handhelds need special consideration for this and I think this article does a good job of expressing them.

posted at 07:16 am on September 1, 2004 by Michael Niggel

8 Media comment

‘media=“handheld,all”>’

I’m tempted to disagree with this method. Surely by simply declaring “all”, this should include handhelds as well. Why do we need to specifically include “handheld”?

posted at 07:21 am on September 1, 2004 by Chris Hester

9 pocket pc emulator

here is a link to a pocket pc emulator. just change the web address at the end.

http://relay5.yospace.com/ipaqbrowser/ipaqbrowser.html?http://www.alistapart.com/

posted at 07:30 am on September 1, 2004 by John Ivanoff

10 media="all"

Chris Hester – “I’m tempted to disagree with this method. Surely by simply declaring “all”, this should include handhelds as well. Why do we need to specifically include “handheld”?”

I assume Opera did this because a lot of sites use media=“all” when what they really mean is media=“screen, projection, print”.

posted at 07:34 am on September 1, 2004 by Luke Shingles