Meta: Open Sourcing OSNews' Mobile Detection Kit
Linked by Eugenia Loli on Thu 24th Apr 2008 22:45 UTC
Internet & Networking We were always proud of OSNews' (and Gnomefiles.org's) mobile capabilities. We spent years collecting keywords to be able to automatically redirect or serve a mobile-formatted or WAP-formatted (wap.osnews.com) page to less capable browsers. We believe that this script can recognize 99% of the world's non-desktop browsers. We gave special care to not only phones, but PDAs, gaming devices, text browsers, even weird embedded systems browsers that most users have never heard of. Now, it's time to open source our PHP detection script so others can use it on their sites too. Download here, and read the included readme.txt file too before using. It explains what is what, and what its difference is compared to similar solutions found elsewhere. You can see the work this detection script does in our mobile statistics (OSNews serves about 1500 pageviews per day on non-desktop browsers via this script).
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Ah... Nice gesture, **BAD** idea.
by rcsteiner on Fri 25th Apr 2008 02:39 UTC
rcsteiner
Member since:
2005-07-12

If this is the code that forces me to see the crippled site on my Nokia 770 even though Minimo works just fine when the browserID is altered, then I like the idea, but it can REALLY be annoying at times too.

I've never understood why this disussion site feels like it always has to push the envelope when so many other sites seem to just work with no apparent need for such browser detection.

Edited 2008-04-25 02:40 UTC

Reply Score: 4

deathshadow Member since:
2005-07-12

I've never understood why this disussion site feels like it always has to push the envelope when so many other sites seem to just work with no apparent need for such browser detection.

Well, to their credit they were making the attempt before ANY of this stuff was standardized, in an age where CSS2 and much of CSS1 was undeployable, NOBODY was talking about semantic markup, separation of presentation from content, or the dozens of other things that one expects from a MODERN site with VALID markup that done properly negates the need (or even the expectation) of this sort of 'sniffing'.

Which is exactly what we're talking here - it's browser sniffing, something that in web design circles is generally considered to be made of /FAIL/... even though on WML/WAP it's a neccessary evil given the endless hordes of legacy devices out there. (If we were talking about doing this for IE/Opera/FF/Safari on the desktop, THEN it's made of endless /FAIL/)

Edited 2008-04-25 03:58 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 2

Square Member since:
2005-10-01

I personally like the format of the main page in mobile view,its easy on the eyes and does the job well. However the comments section is almost unusable and needs better formatting for browsers that can do more then the basics

Reply Parent Score: 1

Eugenia Member since:
2005-06-28

Erm, these pages are made for browsers that can't do more than the basics, so the current format is the best that can be... Trust me, I spent years optimizing for so many devices that I was an avid collector of. You said that because you think too much with the "i will use the mobile site to avoid ads" hat on... ;-)

Reply Parent Score: 1

Read more of this thread... >
Adam S Member since:
2005-04-01

Scroll to the bottom of the page, choose "view desktop version," and you'll be served the real version if you prefer.

Next time, just ask before you rant.

Reply Parent Score: 2