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Brand new Pocket&desktop PC browser compliance test:AJAX

Both AJAX and CSS support are very important with any Web browsers. As they are pretty complicated to support, not even desktop browsers support them entirely, let alone Pocket PC-based ones. Therefore, it’s always worth devoting some (?) time to test the alternate solutions to see which one is the best.
In these tests, I strived to find out in what extent the (most) current Pocket PC and desktop Windows Web browser versions support both AJAX and CSS. The results can be found in the comparison chart below (don’t forget to click the links there to see the screenshots) in a tabulated form – it should be the first thing you check out.
CSS
For this test, I’ve used the well-known Acid2 test. This is a very complex CSS + PNG + other page marker tests with very-easy-to-evaluate results. It's really thoroughly explained here (you won't need to understand what this page is all about though). Also see this reference and, in addition, the somewhat older reports here, showing how other (older and no longer current!) browsers render this test page.
I’ve also given a try to the old, pre-Acid2 test to find out more about the CSS1 compliance. Note that this test is superseded by the Acid2 test and, therefore, you should pay much more attention to the results presented by Acid2. It was, however, nice to see for example that, while both the WM2003 and the WM2003SE browsers crash at trying to display the old test (as with several other – it can’t be stressed enough that most PIE crashes are caused by CSS constructs like this, as I also have thoroughly elaborated on for example here), unlike WM5, in which this bug has also been fixed. (Yeah, WM5 has a LOT of advantages like this. Don’t believe people that say the opposite. People that mock and ridicule WM5 don't obviously know how more stable it is.)
As can be seen, on the desktop, you can expect the most of the Opera browser. On the Pocket PC, Mozilla and Opera Mobile have the best CSS compliance.
Note that while the desktop 9.0.1 Opera is able to render the page flawlessly (it’s the ONLY Windows browser to be able to do so – check out the screenshots showing how the other browsers fare), the 8.6 Windows Mobile version still has some problems with it. These problems will surely go when Opera Mobile is updated to the current, 9.x core. (Opera Mobile uses the same core as the desktop Opera browser. This is why it has the same numbering. This also means the next Opera Mobile version can be expected to be based on the 9.x core, which will also means really flawless CSS support.)
While the browsers had no major problems with this test, the other, pre-Acid2 test sometimes caused major problems with them (see the screenshots and comments). Once again, this test isn’t as sophisticated as the Acid2 test and, therefore, the sometimes absolutely negative results (except for for example the WM2003(SE) crashes, which are important because they do show the WM2003(SE) Pocket Internet Explorer is really sensitive and can crash really easily) obtained aren’t as important as with Acid2.
AJAX
I’ve also thoroughly tested the Ajax compliance; this time, unlike with my previous, not that thorough Ajax tests, paying special attention to running all kinds of tests, not only ones requiring a big screen estate.
The tests I’ve made are as follows (feel free to click the links from for example your desktop browser to see what happens):
This and this page linked from AJAX: Getting Started.
Google Image Labeler
Simple Ajax Address Book version 1 and version 2 linked from Getting started with Ajax
As can clearly be seen, both (the latest, current, 09/13/2006 nighly build of) Minimo and Opera Mobile have excellent Ajax support. The other browsers fared much worse in this respect: NetFront only offers partial support and Thunderhawk / Internet Explorer Mobile (almost) none.
Note that I’ve used a pre-AKU 3.0 WM5 Internet Explorer Mobile in the tests (please read this article for more information on what AKU's mean). As soon as I get a REAL AKU 3.x ROM for any of my WM5 devices, I re-test their Ajax compliance. (No, bepe’s/Ktamas’ cooked 3.2 RC1 HTC Wizard ROM does NOT contain any kind of AJAX support – yes, I’ve tested this and am absolutely sure. I’m not sure about the similarly “cooked” HTC Universal 3.2 ROM.)
All the current versions of desktop Windows Web browsers passed all the Ajax tests.
The comparison chart can be found here (CLICK THE LINK!)
Verdict
If you really want the best Ajax and/or CSS compliance possible, go for Opera on the desktop (it has the best CSS compliance) and either Opera Mobile, or, if you find it fast/stable/powerful enough, the latest nightly build of Minimo (scroll down to the bottom to see the latest, most up-to-date directory, go into it and get one of the installers). Unfortunately, now, none of the other browsers support CSS, let alone AJAX, as good as these applications.
(Again, I'm speaking about pre-AKU 3.0 IEM's. Hope the Ajax support in AKU 3.0+ IEM's will prove at least as good as that of Opera Mobile / Minimo!)
Recommended links
The Web browser category in the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine's Expert Blog - needless to say it’s full of my other, similar articles. Note that I’m pretty sure you will find answers to ALL your Web browser-related questions in there – I’ve published hundreds of Pocket PC Web browsing related articles so far.
You may also want to check out Microsoft’s own Ajax-related tips and Does AJAX Threaten Java ME in the Mobile Ecosystem?. Note that there are a LOT of very cool other Ajax-related pages on the Web - use Google.

REPORT: News from the latest W3C Mobile Web Initiative conference

I have been a bit inactive lately (in the last 4-5 days), article writing-wise (of course, I tried not to neglect the Windows Mobile forums). In addition to some real-life work, the main reason for this was my being one of the speakers on a Budapest-based regional World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)-organized conference, which required a lot of additional work (creating slides, deciding what to speak of, emphasize etc).
The main homepage of the conference is here (you can make a quick search for my name ) - also linked in from the W3C homepage - see the “Next Event” (as of 10/19) box.
The conference was about the Mobile Web Initiative, which is all about how the Web can be made accessible on mobile devices as well. You can find more info on this stuff on the above-linked page. It’s pretty interesting stuff, particularly if you’re a webmaster and would like to know what the future brings (or may bring). In here, I won’t really explain what it’s all about. Upon popular request, I may summarize it (of course, adding professional insights and explanations) in a future article – feel free to tell me (publicly) if you’d interested in such a more of a ‘techie’ article.
You won’t guess: of course, I’ve lectured on the current Web (with very strong emphasis on my thorough tests of new, emerging technologies like Ajax) accessibility situations on Windows Mobile (and, to a much lesser degree, the Linux-based Sharp Zaurii – just comparing the Opera Mobile and NetFront implementations on the two platforms. Unfortunately, having no access to the also Linux-based Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, I couldn’t compare its browser to those on Windows Mobile).
I’ve taken a strong, “low-level” (that is, protocol-level) W3C-specific approach to the subject. That is, instead of, say, speaking about what features the user interface offers (does it support, for example, downloading link targets easily and so on), I mostly elaborated on compliance issues with current Web standards - that is, can a current Windows Mobile user access currently existing, non-mobile-optimized Web page (that is, the vast majority of current Web content).
Having only twenty minutes, you can guess in what depth (pretty shallow) I could elaborate on these questions – after all, it’d take me days to re-explain / show everything I’ve published about, as far as PPC Web browsers are concerned. Of course, as I’ve already published sometimes really lengthy articles, I referred the participants to these articles (see the Ref: NUMBER references in the presentation - they mostly refer to my articles in the Smartphone & Pocket PC Mag Expert blog). That is, I’ve run over all the main compatibility test subjects I’ve ever published a (notable) article on and explained in some sentences what they are all about.
To summarize my (of which the PowerPoint file you can also download – see the links section) lecture, I’ve proved the participants that Windows Mobile has excellent Web browsing capabilities – I’d say better than, not necessarily taking mobile Linux implementations into account, any other mobile platform.
The Nokia OSS browser – is it really as good as some state?
As far as the other speakers / lectures are concerned, there have been three speakers from Nokia too. They have demoed their latest S60-based Web browser, the famous OSS.
I’ve long been wanting to test this browser – so far, without success. I don’t have the money to get all the current toys and top models of competing OS’es. Even purchasing the latest & greatest Windows Mobile devices is sometimes hard to explain to my wife (“another toy – what for?”). Furthermore, being not really interested in Symbian, I don’t really have the “Hey, lend me your latest gadgets so I’ll write an article of it” relationship with the Nokia folks either.
Now, I’ve had the chance to play a bit with the new browser after the demo and, to tell the truth, wasn’t really impressed.
While OSS is based on indeed very strong and standards-compliant HTML and JavaScript engines* (Apple WebCore (KHTML) – Apple’s well-known Safari browser is also based on this – and JavaScriptCore, respectively), it lacks Flash (it only supports Flash lite, which is unable to play standard Flash animations) and Java applets (NOT JavaScript!).
What is even more important, while the way the OSS browser renders Web pages looks really cool on a high-resolution (for example Nokia E-series) screen (it’s like how Thunderhawk renders pages on QVGA Windows Mobile devices – very similar but even more readable, cool-looking, thin characters), it also suffers from the same problem as Thunderhawk: It doesn’t have a One Column (for PIEPlus users: “Pocket View”) mode. I’ve certainly seen some test pages (heavily packed with text in tables) that did require horizontal scrolling, the most important enemy of mobile Web users.
This is unlike all (except for, again, Thunderhawk) Pocket PC Web browsers (where I also count in PIEPlus’ Pocket View mode on pre-WM2003SE browsers), where One Column is present and supported.
Standards compliance-wise, as far as Pocket PC’s are concerned, both Minimo and Opera Mobile are based on really strong, desktop-quality HTML / JavaScript engines, just like Nokia's OSS. Also, Microsoft’s own PIE / IEMis getting better and better all the time (albeit its CSS support is still pretty weak). No, I’m not praising Microsoft's IEM because I’m a Microsoft MVP myself – in the pre-WM5 days, I wouldn’t have recommended PIE to anyone because of the low level of standards compliance and the bugs at all. Since WM2003SE, IEM has become far better than ever before and is, now (WM5 AKU2+), a decent alternative (particularly with PIEPlus) to both Minimo and Opera Mobile.
That is, if a Symbian fan tells you the OSS browser is more standards-compliant than any Pocket PC Web browser, just tell him or her it’s simply not true and refer him or her to my compliance reports. It’s pretty hard to debate with figures and facts .
The standards compliance rate of Windows Mobile is certainly admirable, particularly taking into the account the meager resources of Windows Mobile , both hardware- and developer manpower-wise. For example, Minimo is only developed by ONE programmer, for free and in his free time. Taking this into account the standards compliance Minimo can rightfully be called breathtaking.
All in all, I don’t think the Windows Mobile platform is weaker than Symbian as far as Web browsing is concerned – the Nokia OSS browser does have its share of (sometimes really acute) problems.
Personal Mobsite: Great remote controller / messaging capabilities!
There were some really cool tech demos at the conference, also by the Nokia folks. Their real (it was already running on their E-series devices and notebooks) “Personal Mobsite” demo, which is described here (the most important pages are in English; I recommend the 14th side the most), was pretty interesting – definitely worth implementing something similar on the Windows Mobile platform too. (As soon as I have some free time, I’ll definitely try to re-implement it or at least something similar on our platform.)
Additional threads / links of interest
You may also want to check out this, brand new, related thread over at PPCT on Web 2.0. It doesn’t really have anything to do with Mobile Web Initiative. Still, it contains some additional information on (future) compatibility issues - and my explanations on why the future isn’t so dark for us Windows Mobile users than some people try to make us think.
Here’s my PowerPoint presentation if interested. (Sorry for the non-English language. Still, it may be worth checking out at least the headers, the references and the screenshots to see what I’ve elaborated on – that is, what needs to be emphasized on the current HTTP / HTML / CSS / JavaScript / Ajax / Java / Flash etc. compliance of current Web browsers.)

(Hopefully) final MIDlet Bible main feature&hack&standards compliance chart published

(Hopefully) final MIDlet Bible main feature&hack&standards compliance chart published
It was yesterday that I’ve published a larger excerpt from my forthcoming MIDlet Bible (a full roundup & tutorial explaining what MIDlets are, why you would want to run them, what applications there are to do this etc.), focusing on mostly 3D games. I haven’t been lazy in the meantime: I’ve made some serious updates to the main feature & hack & standards compliance chart of the Bible. The reason I’m posting it as a preview is pretty simple: it will still take me some two or three days to completely finish and, finally, publish the MIDlet Bible. In the meantime, however, you can already check out the new chart. I’m absolutely sure you’ll find it useful if you’re into gaming or running probably the, after Opera Mobile, second best Web Browser for Windows Mobile, Opera Mini 4 beta 2. Or, alternatively, the really unique and useful Gmail MIDlet, which is far more usable than any other Windows Mobile mailer tool.
I’ve, as has already been stated, greatly enhanced the previous version published over a month ago. I’ve added discussions of ClearType / font smoothing, automatic network connection, proxies, text input fields / areas etc. and I’ve even published the source code (!) of some of my test MIDlets I’ve written specifically for these tests. (I’m a Java pro.)
The chart is HERE, should you want to check it out before I, finally, publish the MIDlet Bible.
Comments are REALLY welcome!

(Hopefully) final MIDlet Bible main feature&hack&standards compliance chart published

(Hopefully) final MIDlet Bible main feature&hack&standards compliance chart published
It was yesterday that I’ve published a larger excerpt from my forthcoming MIDlet Bible (a full roundup & tutorial explaining what MIDlets are, why you would want to run them, what applications there are to do this etc.), focusing on mostly 3D games. I haven’t been lazy in the meantime: I’ve made some serious updates to the main feature & hack & standards compliance chart of the Bible. The reason I’m posting it as a preview is pretty simple: it will still take me some two or three days to completely finish and, finally, publish the MIDlet Bible. In the meantime, however, you can already check out the new chart. I’m absolutely sure you’ll find it useful if you’re into gaming or running probably the, after Opera Mobile, second best Web Browser for Windows Mobile, Opera Mini 4 beta 2. Or, alternatively, the really unique and useful Gmail MIDlet, which is far more usable than any other Windows Mobile mailer tool.
I’ve, as has already been stated, greatly enhanced the previous version published over a month ago. I’ve added discussions of ClearType / font smoothing, automatic network connection, proxies, text input fields / areas etc. and I’ve even published the source code (!) of some of my test MIDlets I’ve written specifically for these tests. (I’m a Java pro.)
The chart is HERE, should you want to check it out before I, finally, publish the MIDlet Bible.
Comments are REALLY welcome!

Misc news: new Jbed / Jblend distros; PDA controller / Web browser news, Revival out

1. After publishing my review of VirtualCE 4 (Cross-posts: AximSite, XDA-Developers - 1, XDA-Developers - 2, BrightHand, HowardForums, MoDaCo, PocketGamer.org, PPCT, SPT), there have been some changes:
a new MyMobiler version has been released, implementing, for example, manual screen rotation and the ability to hide the Today screen icon
some of the bugs of VirtualCE 4 have been fixed (for example, BMP24 crashing). Hope the developer also finds a way to completely (even from the bottom taskbar) hide the main selector / controller screen as is asked in the above-linked HowardForums thread
Pocket Controller 6 has turned out to support LAN discovery and hiding the connection “bubble” upon TCP/IP connection (as opposed to the ActiveSync one).
2. I, after more than a week’s waiting (see my previous post HERE), still haven’t received any feedback from the Strategy Analytics Inc. folks regarding the lack of Opera Mini in their 5-Star Safari Leads Mobile Browsing Experience, which, in many Windows Mobile users’ (including me) opinion, is the most useful / quickest Web browser for the Windows Mobile platform. And, for other mobile platforms too – on my Symbian Nokia N95 and BlackBerry 8800, I almost exclusively use this browser to access the Web. Not including it in the test makes the entire report pretty hard to depend on – it’s like completely ignoring, for example, Ferrari (a top-performing car) when evaluating the cars of Formula-1.
And, of course, I’ve already elaborated on the bad ranking of Nokia Web (running on Symbian S60 3rd edition devices – that is, NOT on Windows Mobile) and, particularly, Opera Mobile (running on all major mobile platforms). Again and again, if you do learn the dialpad shortcuts and/or, with Opera Mobile running on a dialpad-less Pocket PC, use a third-party tool to assign its key functionalities (accessing favorites, current tabs, back etc.) to Pocket PC hardware buttons, they both become quicker and easier to operate than Internet Explorer. It’s clearly at this point (in addition to the lack of Opera Mini) that Strategy Analytics Inc.’s report severely lacks – it’s evident the test folks didn’t really make an attempt at learning the dialpad shortcuts / configure Opera Mobile for easy and much quicker access / use.
3. Still as far as Windows Mobile and Symbian are concerned, a brand-new Web browser, Skyfire has been released. See some of the related threads HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE (a preview) and HERE. I, as I’m located in Europe, still haven’t had the choice to test it (it's, currently, only available for US residents).
Based on the first reports, it’s based on a similar architecture than Microsoft’s, for the time being, discontinued DeepFish (RIP!) and Thunderhawk’s Java applet emulation. That is, it, in practice, generates an image of the page on the server and transfers this to the client – there isn’t local HTML (?) / Flash parsing / execution on the client side at all. This has both pros and cons, as has already been explained in my Web Browsing Bible.
I REALLY hope Skyfire is WAY better implemented than DeepFish (or Thunderhawk's applet emulation). DeepFish was really slow – not only because its beta servers were, generally, really overloaded, but also because it was implemented using the slowish Compact Framework, as opposed to the much faster Win32 API. Unfortunately, Thunderhawk’s (remote, image transfer-based) Java applet emulation isn’t really capable of emulating running it on the local mobile either. Therefore, I seriously doubt you’ll be able to, say, play fast Flash action games under Skyfire – you’ll still need a local Flash interpreter (only available Opera Mobile or Internet Explorer - and, also, NetFront, but the latter has a pretty buggy and definitely less compatible Flash engine) for that.
I’ll meet the Skyfire folks at Barcelona; hope I’ll be able to play with their browser a bit so that I can quickly test its usability, small screen-friendliness (for example, does it have the same, excellent text boundary recognition engine than that of Opera Mini in full layout mode) and Web standards compliance.
4. There are new builds of both Jbed and Jblend (two excellent MIDlet Managers – see the Java MIDlet Bible for more info). Due to lack of time, I haven’t tested them. Both has been done by Da_G (his projects’ homepage is HERE) and are accessible HERE. Note that you MUST register yourself (it’s free and is done quickly) in order to access the page above (along with the download).
I hope I’ll be able to test them some time – along with the default Blackberry MIDlet manager. (I might wait with testing the latter until version 4.5 of BB OS is released, though.)
5. the new, in addition to the venerable and no-longer-developed Pocket Humanity, Civilization-clone, Revival (see the links to (p)reviews HERE), has been released! It’s a bit pricey for Pocket PC’s (and Palm OS 5 models): $24.95. Fortunately, if you have a non-touchscreen MS Smartphone, you only end up having to pay $15.95 - just like with Symbian S60v3 and UIQ3 devices. Finally, if you have an old Symbian S60 or UIQ device, you’ll only need to shell out $9.95 for the game. Definitely worth a try! Also note that, in addition to the previews linked above, there’s a brand new JAMM one HERE well worth checking out.

Menneisyys said:
I’ll meet the Skyfire folks at Barcelona; hope I’ll be able to play with their browser a bit so that I can quickly test its usability, small screen-friendliness (for example, does it have the same, excellent text boundary recognition engine than that of Opera Mini in full layout mode) and Web standards compliance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
look forward to your thoughts on this eagerly anticipated web browser...hope its not a let down
PS:try to bluejack a copy if you can j/ks