Standards for building Web sites to service handheld clients are converging with everyday XHTML and CSS. It is becoming easier for an organization with an existing Web presence aimed at full-screen clients to extend that design & implementation to service handheld clients. The coding standards are converging but are not the same, and the style requirements for display are radically different. This presentation will cover the major design and implementation decisions required to successfully serve both handheld and full-screen clients.
Details of Apache server configuration will be covered. This will include such topics as MIME-type issues, easy-to-implement site template solutions, and developing dynamic sites using server-side scripting. Details of CSS use and browser-specific limitations will also be reviewed. Example solutions showing multiple approaches to making site design & implementation decisions will be shown, reasons for various design decisions will be discussed, and example implementation code will be examined.
Near-term probabilities for the development and spread of handheld clients will be examined. The audience will be engaged in a discussion on future trends in integrating the Mobile Web into the existing Web. The focus of the conversation will be on how to better provide sites for online collaboration and sharing among users of both full-screen and handheld devices: capabilities at the core of what has become known as "Web 2.0".
([0] Draft Slide-Set [as HTML& PNGs])
([1] Draft Slide-Set [as QuickTime Movie])
Prof. Jeff Sonstein teaches in the IT Department at RIT, and is the Director of the newly-formed Center for the Handheld Web ([2] http://chw.ariadne.mobi/). His career has included very early work on the World Wide Web, development of cross-platform multi-user online virtual reality systems, and a stint at NASA-Ames Research Center. His interests in studying the emerging "Mobile Web" include both the practical level (developing handheld design and implementation best practices) and the abstract (social, political, and economic effects of further integrating the developing world into the WWW).