Re: [IUG] AirPAC alternatives....?

["David Kane" <DKANE at wit dot ie>]

Hi Valentia,
 
I think that it *might* be possible to do this by stripping down the HTML, and putting the formatting into a CSS stylesheet.  
 
A good liquid CSS design could fit into the small screens of mobile devices.
 
However, desigining for different mobile devices is very hard, as each manufacturer will have a different native browser, accoriding to my friend Cathal, who has done some work in this area.  You have to have minimal information and minimal formatting.  This is not going to be very difficult if you are designing with the iPhone, or Blackberry in mind, but there are many phones with smaller screens. So, it is important to know who you are designing for.
 
A good place to start is with Opera's Mini browser, for ordinary, small mobile phones.  
 
To get it on your mobile device click here: http://www.opera.com/mini/download/ 
 
You can download an emulator here: http://www.opera.com/developer/ 
 
Then you could experiment with this, try a design with two stylesheets, one for the web and the other for the mobile device...
 
<link href="/css/forweb.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" />
<link href="/css/mobile.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="handheld" />
 
While you're at it, you could add a third CSS sheet for print-friendly!
 
<link href="/css/printr.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="printer" />
 
In the printer CSS, you could hide elements, like the side menu, footer, and top banner - leaving more room for the core information.
 
Anyway, you want to remove the tables and replace them with DIV tags positioned using CSS.
 
Good luck with it,
 
David.
 
 
David Kane
Systems Librarian
WIT Libraries
http://library.wit.ie/ 
++353.51302838


>>> Valentina Mayz <mayz at nova dot edu> 05/02/2009 20:03 >>>
Has anyone out there found a way to make their OPAC mobile device-friendly
without having to purchase Air PAC?



Feel free to contact me off list.

Thanks!

Valentina Mayz

Web Administrator - Alvin Sherman Library, Research, and IT Center

Nova Southeastern University

Fort Lauderdale, FL

954-262-4605





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