Hands on: Going mobile

You can now go to http://m.avantgo.com for a mobile web version which, on my Nokia N95 at least, features pages that require you to scroll around to see everything on them.

As a site publisher, you can show your readers how to create a custom channel and, in theory, it’ll be available on a wide range of devices.

I’d love to hear how other readers get on ­ my own experience is of broken links, missing news stories and sync problems. In short, it’s not a method I’d recommend people look at for getting their own site online.

So, what can you do? As a user, it’s worth looking at Opera Mini at www.operamini.com. ­ This Java-based browser will run on a huge number of mobile phones, including plenty that wouldn’t be classed as smartphones. And it does a pretty good job of reformatting pages on the fly, fitting them on a small screen and avoiding having to scroll sideways as well as up and down.

In fact, the latest version has some handy features, including the ability to group links into collapsible sub-sections on a page.

It’s not perfect, especially if you’re aiming to get exactly the same feel on the mobile as on the desktop, but the mobile mode does make pages easy to use ­ and in full-page mode, you can see what’s on a page and go to the bit you’re interested in much easier than with the standard Symbian browser, for example.

It’s also worth looking at Opera’s website, where there is a section specifically for web designers with information on the capabilities of the mobile browser and tips on creating websites for people on the go. Rather than shamelessly recycling their information, I’ll point you instead to www.operamini.com/developer.

Mobile with Mippin
I’ve talked in the past about ways to customise your site, checking the headers sent by browsers, for example, and choosing a different style sheet to give a better result for people with specific browsers, including mobile ones.

Or, of course, if you have a fairly simple site, it may degrade quite well on a small screen, without needing too much alteration. But that’s not always the case. Sometimes you just want to make your site accessible without having to do lots of hard work. One solution is Mippin at www.mippin.com.