Feature Request: Handheld stylesheets.

February 22, 2006 10:58 AM

Feature Request: Handheld stylesheets.
posted by djgh to Feature Requests at 10:58 AM (12 comments total)

Overall, MeFi displays nicely on my Palm. However, the sidebar takes up the full screen width (even in landscape mode), meaning a lot of scrolling before the content. Would it be possible to add in a "media=handheld" stylesheet with the sidebar positioned after the main content? I'm sure those of us with PDA's/phones would be most grateful. I realise there's a LoFi version, but I like the colour scheme...
posted by djgh at 10:58 AM on February 22, 2006

This is the kind of thing that some interested person could provide to Matt wholesale, which would really improve the odds of it happening.
posted by smackfu at 12:01 PM on February 22, 2006

yeah, just crank out a handheld sheet and I'll upload it.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:19 PM on February 22, 2006

looks fine on my psp.

suck it.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:55 PM on February 22, 2006

The link colors on my blackberry could use some more contrast, too. I have to basically scroll through and highlight the links so i can read the posts.
posted by empath at 1:20 PM on February 22, 2006

Attempt at solution (self link, rel="nofollow"). Test page (self link, rel="nofollow"). Any handheld users want to comment on what it looks like - suggestions for any handheld.css?

empath - Are the links too light or too dark? I might continue tweaking the handhelds stylesheet, if that's ok by mathowie.

Thoughts?
posted by djgh at 2:08 PM on February 22, 2006

If it would help the useability, maybe you should just kill the sidebar entirely in this CSS.
posted by smackfu at 2:19 PM on February 22, 2006

djgh: On my Blackberry, the two links at the top of the test page "Skip to Content" and "Skip to end of sidebar" do the same thing - they jump to the first post. I don't seem to have that contrast problem with link visibility in MeFi though.
posted by patricio at 2:28 PM on February 22, 2006

smackfu: I considered that after positioning didn't work, but two things. Firstly, mobile browsers would be losing out on content (and that would especially annoy those who see MeFi fine as-is). Secondly, skiplinks aren't inherently un-usable, it was just having one that said it went one place when in fact it pointed to another.

patricio: In the flow of the document the links actually go to pretty much the same place - it just seems to be that Palms do something with the float that puts the "startcontent" link behind the sidebar.

I'm going to see what mobile browser emulators I can find...
posted by djgh at 3:24 PM on February 22, 2006

on my pocket pc, it looks alright, except the page could be tightened up a bit
posted by matkline at 7:42 PM on February 22, 2006

Finalised pony request (self link, rel="nofollow"), with CSS cranked out, ready for copy-and-paste action.

In short, one skiplink, one style added to default110.css, and one new stylesheet with an @import and two styles.

A link to end of sidebar just for T|X users seemed stupid, so hopefully this will provide relief from scrolling for mobile users.

Thanks Matt!

I seem to have become Official Mobile Spokesperson. Anyone else got any mobile issues?
posted by djgh at 6:19 PM on February 23, 2006

You may wnat to email Matt with this request - there's no guarantee that he'll see it otherwise. FWIW, your page displays well on Opera Mobile S80.
posted by blag at 8:32 AM on February 24, 2006