Theming for Advanced Mobile Devices
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mbutcher - Fri, 01/25/2008 - 7:35pm
Presenters:
Matt Butcher
Track:
design and user experience
Session Description:
SESSION OVERVIEW
Mobile devices include increasingly sophisticated web browsing technologies. In this session, Matt Butcher will discuss developing Drupal themes targeted toward these devices, demonstrating some working themes. The demonstrated theme will be targeted toward the Apple iPhone/iPod Touch devices, though the principles and techniques discussed will apply to other advanced mobile devices, as well. The last portion of the session will be an open discussion intended to discuss mobile development on other platforms. You are invited to bring your own projects and devices for this discussion.
Update: This panel was originally focused only on iPhone/iPod, but I’m trying to expand it.
TRACK
Design and User Experience.
AGENDA
* A quick introduction to advanced mobile web browsers
* Extending from an existing theme in Drupal 6
* Main layout of an iPhone/iPod-friendly site.
* Blocks and Nodes in small spaces
* Javascript and CSS considerations for iPhone/iPod and other embedded devices
* Using some extra modules to get additional functionality
* Discussion on using similar strategies for other mobile devices
GOALS
The goal of this session is to introduce and illustrate mobile themes to Drupal 6 themers and developers. By the end of the session, attendees should understand the unique design considerations for targeting such platforms, and also be equipped with the practical tools necessary to implement themes on their own. I will be showing themes on an iPod touch, but at the end, we will (collectively) discuss theming for a broader range of mobile devices.
RESOURCES
It is assumed that attendees have a basic knowledge of theming in Drupal 6. The focus will be primarily on PHPTemplates, HTML, and CSS. Minor Javascript and PHP may be discussed as well, but will not be central.
Packt Publishing (http://packtpub.com) will be publishing Matt’s presentation in article form soon after Matt gives the presentation.
any way to make it less apple(TM) specific?
This sounds really interesting, but I wonder if there is any chance this could be made more generic and cover handhelds in general, including blackberry, treo and the nokia internet tablets (which is my favorite because it runs free software)?
Good idea -- I'll see what I can do.
This is a good idea. In some ways, the iPod/iPhone UI is fairly unique. But in other ways, many of the procedures that would be followed to develop on one mobile device could be used on others.
I will see what I can do to make this more generic.
Perhaps the best way to accomplish this would be to open up part of the session to other developers who have worked on theming for mobile devices.
Update: Making the Topic More Generic
Eric’s comment got me thinking, and I’ve re-written the presentation to be more inclusive of other mobile platforms. I don’t think it is particularly interesting to discuss bottom-of-the-barrel mobile devices, but the more advanced devices — those with larger screens and full web browsers — are more enticing. Those are the sorts of devices we will be looking at.
While I will still be using an iPod Touch for the demonstration (it’s what I have), I’ll try to make the presentation as a whole more generic. And I’ve reworked things so that we will have time at the end for a broad discussion on other mobile devices.
cool!
I’ll bring my N800 so you have another device to experiment with during the workshop
BOF?
Hi Matt,
I hope you offer this session as a BOF. I have been doing some work with the iPhone, and would love to talk with other people about it.