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krisse is offline krisse
2009-04-26 , 18:15
Posts: 1,540 | Thanked: 1,045 times | Joined on Feb 2007
#41
Originally Posted by BrentDC View Post
How about option #6: improve FWTV so it doesn't break so many websites? Surely it can be done, just look at WebKit and it's seamless page reflowing.
It would be quite a challenge, especially as websites continue to develop even after a browser is released. Add in stuff like Flash content to the mix and it becomes even more difficult. Webmasters might test how their site looks on various browsers in normal mode, but I doubt many consider FWTV.
 
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BrentDC is offline BrentDC
2009-04-26 , 18:45
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#42
Originally Posted by krisse View Post
It would be quite a challenge, especially as websites continue to develop even after a browser is released. Add in stuff like Flash content to the mix and it becomes even more difficult. Webmasters might test how their site looks on various browsers in normal mode, but I doubt many consider FWTV.
This is always the (main) problem with mobile browsers: you can't expect web-developers to design webpages for your browser on your platform like you can on a desktop (like Microsoft can with Internet Explorer). You have to design your browser to work with anything web-developers will throw at it.

It is not like it is impossible and page reflowing can't be done though, and actually to the contrary most mobile web browsers offer this technology: think Opera Mini, Safari and all WebKit-based browsers.

The problem with MicroB's implementation is that not really enough thought was put into it. It seems like it tries to brute-force reflow the page; even the name suggests this "Fit Width To View". You can't expect to be able to forcefully cram a page down into a 800px wide area if it is just impossible to do so (and get good results).

It seems that MicroB lacks any sort of sense of word-wrapping e.g try opening a .txt file in MicroB and set on FWTV. Does it wrap the text? Nope.

Do the same in WebKit, and the text is word-wrapped perfectly. Successful page reflowing starts with removing extra space between objects, reflowing text (word-wrapping each text area), then shrinking images (if desired). If that doesn't result in a properly sized page, then the browser should not try to force the issue any further.

This is what the best mobile browsers do and MicroB doesn't.

All IMO, BTW.
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Author of TouchSearch -- web searching software for Maemo 5.

Mobile Device lineage: Palm Z22 -> Palm TX -> Nokia N800 -> Nokia N900
Last edited by BrentDC; 2009-04-26 at 18:48.
 

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GeneralAntilles is offline GeneralAntilles
2009-04-26 , 18:50
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#43
Originally Posted by BrentDC View Post
It is not like it is impossible and page reflowing can't be done though, and actually to the contrary most mobile web browsers offer this technology: think Opera Mini, Safari and all WebKit-based browsers.
How many rendering engines have you developed? The people who have say it's a feature that's too difficult to implement cleanly to be worth doing. What would you really rather see them do (given limited resources—with is a given) get fast, accurate rendering or waste a lot of time working on a feature that will never work well in all cases, slows down the browser and generally manages to degrade the user experience.

Sure, it can be done, but that doesn't make it wise to do so. And besides, it's not the only (nor the best) way to solve the "large websites don't fit so well on small screens" dilema.
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krisse is offline krisse
2009-04-26 , 18:57
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#44
Maybe we should wait to see what the next Maemo devices actually are before deciding they should have FWTV.

AFAIK no one has confirmed exactly what these new devices will be, and the word "tablet" is no longer in Nokia's vocabulary so the form factor may be very different.
 
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BrentDC is offline BrentDC
2009-04-26 , 18:58
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#45
Originally Posted by GeneralAntilles View Post
How many rendering engines have you developed?
None.

The people who have say it's a feature that's too difficult to implement cleanly to be worth doing. What would you really rather see them do (given limited resources—with is a given) get fast, accurate rendering or waste a lot of time working on a feature that will never work well in all cases, slows down the browser and generally manages to degrade the user experience.

Sure, it can be done, but that doesn't make it wise to do so. And besides, it's not the only (nor the best) way to solve the "large websites don't fit so well on small screens" dilema.
Well, it might be extremely difficult for the MicroB developers to implement, but this will certainly be implemented in the Gecko engine at some point if it hasn't already (or whatever they will call the Fennec engine).

Unfortunately, we are still using Alpha 1...

Additionally, it took one man just a couple weeks (if not less) to get the WebKit engine running on the tablets. And that already has many more mobile-oriented features than Gecko. Nearly all the the mobile browsers are using Webkit these days, there must be a reason...
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Mobile Device lineage: Palm Z22 -> Palm TX -> Nokia N800 -> Nokia N900
 
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GeneralAntilles is offline GeneralAntilles
2009-04-26 , 19:18
Posts: 5,478 | Thanked: 5,222 times | Joined on Jan 2006 @ St. Petersburg, FL
#46
Originally Posted by BrentDC View Post
Additionally, it took one man just a couple weeks (if not less) to get the WebKit engine running on the tablets. And that already has many more mobile-oriented features than Gecko. Nearly all the the mobile browsers are using Webkit these days, there must be a reason...
When Nokia choose to go with Gecko WebKit wasn't even a viable option.

Nokia also seems to want to get some interesting browser plugins going in the long term, and WebKit doesn't have XUL.
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GeraldKo is offline GeraldKo
2009-04-26 , 19:40
Posts: 1,950 | Thanked: 1,174 times | Joined on Jan 2008 @ Seattle, USA
#47
Originally Posted by GeneralAntilles View Post
Sure, [page reflowing] can be done, but that doesn't make it wise to do so. And besides, it's not the only (nor the best) way to solve the "large websites don't fit so well on small screens" dilema.
What's better than page reflowing to fit large websites on small screens?

(BTW, I, and I think the other FWTV fans, such as lm2, will be perfectly happy for FWTV to be abandoned so long as Nokia provides some other way to see large text -- that is, as large as the user chooses -- on a small screen without scrolling. We've already said as much.) (Tear generally does this job very well, but there are still rare websites where I have to go back to MicroB to use FWTV.)
 
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krisse is offline krisse
2009-04-26 , 19:54
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#48
Originally Posted by GeraldKo View Post
What's better than page reflowing to fit large websites on small screens?
Unless I've missed something, we don't know what size the screens will be on the new devices.

If the new device's screen is, say, 7 inches, then the need for FWTV will be much smaller.
 
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qgil is offline qgil
2009-04-26 , 20:00
Posts: 3,105 | Thanked: 11,087 times | Joined on Jul 2007 @ Mountain View (CA, USA)
#49
Originally Posted by GeraldKo View Post
(Tear generally does this job very well, but there are still rare websites where I have to go back to MicroB to use FWTV.)
URLs please?
 
GeraldKo is offline GeraldKo
2009-04-26 , 20:08
Posts: 1,950 | Thanked: 1,174 times | Joined on Jan 2008 @ Seattle, USA
#50
Originally Posted by krisse View Post
Unless I've missed something, we don't know what size the screens will be on the new devices.

If the new device's screen is, say, 7 inches, then the need for FWTV will be much smaller.
And I'll be replacing my N800 with an iPod Touch!

(More likely, it would just force me to keep using my N800 for a long, long time, until Web progress outstrips even Bundyo's exertions.)
 
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