Posted by samsonknight 2 years 12 weeks ago
I am looking to develop a mobile web site which uses PHP, CSS, XHTML. I have read two e-books on "mobile web design", but I am still very very confused. Previously, I have been web designing on desktop PCs. And have some experience creating native apps for the phone.
Right, a few questions:
1) Server side scripting - is PHP supported by every mobile web browser? I need to use PHP because I will be extracting data from a DB then displaying it onto the mobile web site.
2) How do I begin to build a mobile web site, I know this is a bit of a vague questions. But, how does this process work?
Say after I have created my web site, how can I see how it looks like on different handsets? i.e. what type of emulators do I need to display it on my PC here.
3) What handsets should I develop the site for?
Basically, any good tutorials will do (or anything that can get me started for that matter).
Thanks guys.
Posted by garbetjie 2 years ago
Hi samsonknight.
Welcome to the mobile development community (on the web) :P
In answer to your questions:
1. I've never encountered issues using PHP on mobile devices. Due to PHP being a server-side programming language, more often than not, the phone might not even know that PHP is being used. All it knows is that it is being served (X)HTML.
2. This is quite a vague question, but it depends entirely on what you are using your site for. Ideally, though, it should be kept as simple as possible. When designing, I always prefer to design vertically, rather than horizontally. But on the whole, it's kind of like designing for the web, while keeping it much simpler.
3. Unless you have a specific target market (for example, professionals using Blackberries), you should try and keep as many devices in mind as possible. Personally, I have dropped support for phones that do not support XHTML mobile, as I don't have the development time needed to develop for WML-only phones.
As for emulators, nothing will beat the actual phone. So if you can lay your hands on the phones that you intend developing for, that would be the best. Otherwise, there is an online service called Device Anywhere that I've recently started looking into. It seems pretty decent.
Hope this helps :)