Can you design for PDAs without owning one?

[maybeithink2much]

I'm told my site doesn't render well on PDAs in general and particularly something called a T-Mobile Color Sidekick. Myself, I don't own any Internet-capable handheld device (yet!) but I'd like to see how my site is rendered so I can redesign.

I've downloaded the PalmOS Simulator from palmOne's site, but I'm unable to get an Internet connection on my laptop.

Is there a way to preview how your pages look on a handheld without actually using a handheld?

[maxor]

Aside from the simulators I don't know of any way to preview what the site will look like. I'm sure there are some specifications about how to design with PDAs in mind.

[blufive]

Opera 7 includes a "small-screen" rendering mode which emulates the version of Opera that ships on smartphones/pdas

Press F11, I think, or look around in the menus.

[M. Johansson]

For mobile devices, always go all plain text. That's what owners of mobile browsers want, because their screens are small, their connections are slow, and their bandwidth is expensive as hell.

[Net Stuff]

For mobile devices, always go all plain text. That's what owners of mobile browsers want, because their screens are small, their connections are slow, and their bandwidth is expensive as hell.

That's not exactly true..

I am surfing using my iPaq from my living room using a wireless access point. so cost and speed are not issues... but size IS..

Some sites work well, and some are terrible.'

Sites such as Google can somehow detect that i am using a PDA abd provide me with a PDA version of their website.

Does anyone know where i can find the detection code as inwould like to write a pda version of some of my websites.

[M. Johansson]

I am surfing using my iPaq from my living room using a wireless access point. so cost and speed are not issues... but size IS..

Even with unlimited bandwidth and high speed, I'd prefer plaintext on my PDA, due to the valuable screen space.

[Arctic Fox]

Does anyone know where i can find the detection code as inwould like to write a pda version of some of my websites.

I would think you’d need some JavaScript to detect screen sizes... then direct the visitor to a text-only part of your site.

[Herbster]

Does anyone know where i can find the detection code as inwould like to write a pda version of some of my websites.

I haven't tested this:

$browser=substr(trim($HTTP_USER_AGENT),0,4);
 
if($browser=="Noki” || // Nokia phones and emulators
 
$browser=="Eric” || // Ericsson WAP phones and emulators
 
$browser=="WapI” || // Ericsson WapIDE 2.0
 
$browser=="MC21″ || // Ericsson MC218
 
$browser=="AUR ” || // Ericsson R320
 
$browser=="R380″ || // Ericsson R380
 
$browser=="UP.B” || // UP.Browser
 
$browser=="WinW” || // WinWAP browser
 
$browser=="UPG1″ || // UP.SDK 4.0
 
$browser=="upsi” || // another kind of UP.Browser ??
 
$browser=="QWAP” || // unknown QWAPPER browser
 
$browser=="Jigs” || // unknown JigSaw browser
 
$browser=="Java” || // unknown Java based browser
 
$browser=="Alca” || // unknown Alcatel-BE3 browser (UP based?)
 
$browser=="MITS” || // unknown Mitsubishi browser
 
$browser=="MOT-” || // unknown browser (UP based?)
 
$browser=="My S” || // unknown Ericsson devkit browser ?
 
$browser=="WAPJ” || // Virtual WAPJAG [url="http://www.wapjag.de/"][color=#0000ff]www.wapjag.de[/color][/url]
 
$browser=="fetc” || // fetchpage.cgi Perl script from [url="http://www.wapcab.de/"][color=#0000ff]www.wapcab.de[/color][/url]
 
$browser=="ALAV” || // yet another unknown UP based browser ?
 
$browser=="Wapa") // another unknown browser ("Wapalyzer”?) 

http://www.alexking.org/blog/2003/05...ser-detection/
Edit: Those "”"'s should be closing quotes.