Issue Details (XML | Word | Printable)

Key: OA-276
Type: New Feature New Feature
Status: Closed Closed
Resolution: Fixed
Priority: Major Major
Assignee: Matthew Landauer
Reporter: Rob Manson
Votes: 1
Watchers: 2
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OpenAustralia.org

Make OA mobile friendly (and also add a swish iPhone App too)

Created: 12/Jun/09 03:52 PM   Updated: 01/Oct/09 01:53 PM   Resolved: 28/Sep/09 10:28 PM
Component/s: Mobile
Affects Version/s: Hackfest Sydney 2009
Fix Version/s: None

Time Tracking:
Not Specified

File Attachments: 1. File OpenAustralia_mobile_NBOEHM.bmml (4 kB) 13/Jun/09 10:03 AM - Nathanael Boehm

Image Attachments:

1. OpenAustralia_mobile_NBOEHM.png
(79 kB)
Environment: Apache, PHP and/or Perl


 Description  « Hide
Update to httpd.conf to support auto-detection then change index.php and similar pages along with some new css to make basic Mobile Web work. A more sophistictated iPhone version will take a bit more work...then it can be wrapped in a simple iPhone SDK App.

This will make OpenAustralia.org auto detect if you're not using a PC and then serve you a mobile optimised Mobile Website or iPhone Website. I'm sure people need to search Hansards, etc. when they're in a meeting and don't have their laptop 8)

Kat Szuminska added a comment - 12/Jun/09 04:06 PM
its all yours.

Nathanael Boehm added a comment - 13/Jun/09 10:03 AM
Very basic mobile version wireframe knocked up in Balsamiq on the bus enroute from Canberra to Sydney for hackfest.

Sherif Mansour added a comment - 14/Jun/09 09:45 PM
Go Balsomiq mockups!

Matthew Landauer added a comment - 17/Jun/09 12:09 PM
@Rob - Stupid question from me: for a first pass at this are you going to be able to get a mobile version working by only applying changes to the CSS (except for the auto-detection) or is it going to require the html output to change as well?

Henare Degan added a comment - 17/Jun/09 02:50 PM
From Rob's email, looks like a bit more than just CSS changes: http://groups.google.com.au/group/openaustralia-dev/msg/b0c32e544011b8dd

Rob Manson added a comment - 17/Jun/09 07:45 PM
@Matthew - not a stupid question at all 8)

I was hoping that I could get away with just that - but the php and POSH is a bit convoluted for that. So, I've ended up creating a mobile.php and iphone.php that output simpler versions of the POSH output by index.php. I'm also currently doing similar cut-downs for search/index.php. So this means I haven't made any of the existing code incompatible with twfy...I've just tried to create similar and parallel code paths. Ideally I'd strip it all down and use a cleaner abstraction but I'm very aware of making as little impact on the existing code base as possible while delivering the best mobile results.

If you want to discuss this further just bounce me an email, ping me on the dev list or grab me on irc.

BTW: Hoping to have a diff ready for checking tomorrow (fingers crossed).

Matthew Landauer added a comment - 17/Jun/09 08:09 PM
@Rob - thanks for filling me in. That all makes perfect sense. Looking forward to it!

Rob Manson added a comment - 17/Jun/09 08:48 PM
@Matthew - one thing I forgot to mention is that the mod_rewrite rules use passthrough handling so even though the iPhone page gets served by iphone.php or other mobiles get served by mobile.php you still see the same URL as a PC user and you don't get redirected. At least this is the case for the main entry point for the site http://OpenAustralia.org/ From there the navigation and form interactions keep you interacting with the relevant version of the site.

I have done a search for sites pointing directly to the index.php path (e.g. google - link:http://www.OpenAustralia.org/index.php) but couldn't find any so I've kept the regex simple and just handle the basic top level URL.

I also include a link so if you want you can switch back to viewing the full PC version of the site if you want - choice is obviously important.

Rob Manson added a comment - 19/Jun/09 12:02 PM
8( Still struggling with the convoluted way the search results pages are built. Hopefully have it finished tonight.

If I do...is it possible to get it put into a public dev instance tomorrow for testing?

Rob Manson added a comment - 19/Jun/09 12:52 PM
@Matthew - I got it all working (I think) - just need to roll it into dev to test with more data. Can you let me know how you want to do this?

Rob Manson added a comment - 19/Jun/09 05:06 PM
Ok... @Henare was very helpful on irc - I've forked twfy on github (robman) and have pushed my changes to that repos. I've also sent a pull request to @Matthew.

Not happy that the mobile.php files are just copies of index.php with bits commented out - will move over to a global mobile (or other device) flag as soon as I have time.

Also may be a small bug in the php redirect in mp/ but will test that more when it's loaded into a public dev environment with more data than I have.

Will add a global mobile footer soon...and lot's of ideas for a nice iPhone (and maybe Palm Pre) version soon too.

If anyone has any questions or trouble getting it running just give me a holar...

Matthew Landauer added a comment - 06/Jul/09 03:03 PM
@Rob - should I create a separate ticket for adding the global mobile footer? I'm assuming this is going to have a link to the non-mobile version of the site too. Is that right?

Rob Manson added a comment - 06/Jul/09 03:08 PM
Hey Matthew, that would be great as I think there are some broader issues (e.g. subscribe options) that need to be discussed too. How do you want to handle the iPhone plan too?

And yes...this should definitely include a link to view the full PC site. On a separate note our dev team is working on a Creative Commons based "oneWEBaddress" mobile/pc switcher campaign to try to standardise this across sites so more info on that soon.

Thanks for promoting this into test!

Matthew Landauer added a comment - 06/Jul/09 04:26 PM
See newly created ticket OA-304 for adding a standard footer for the mobile version

eric added a comment - 06/Jul/09 05:01 PM
most pages appear fine on iphone, but for two -- when i entered my postcode on the initial screen the subsequent page (showing reps for my area) was wide screen format, and the related page for changing which postcode i want as my pref.

Rob Manson added a comment - 28/Sep/09 01:52 PM
OA-304, OA-309 & OA-312 are now all fixed. Checking in code now so after some testing on test.openaustralia this should be ready to release.

Matthew Landauer added a comment - 28/Sep/09 10:23 PM
Latest version deployed to test.openaustralia.org for testing

Matthew Landauer added a comment - 01/Oct/09 01:53 PM
Merged and deployed