Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Wikipedia Launches a New Mobile Interface, Seeks Help

Posted by timothy on from the discuss-in-the-talk-section dept.

hampton2600 writes "The Wikimedia Foundation is proud to present our new mobile site optimized for modern high-end phones. The interface is focused on being clean and easy to read on your mobile device. We currently officially support reading on the iPhone and Android phones. The new gateway is written entirely in Ruby (using the Merb framework) and the Git repository can be found here. We are looking for open source help with supporting other phone types and translations into new languages. Currently 8 languages are supported, but we'd like to support all languages Wikipedia supports. This is an active project and we are looking for new features, etc. from the community."

70 comments

  1. FINALLY! by kaizendojo · · Score: 3, Informative

    I have been waiting for this for a long time and will gladly test the hell out of it. If you've ever tried accessing WIKIpedia with Mobile IE you'd know it was an exercise in futility.

    1. Re:FINALLY! by Locke2005 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Mobile IE...was an exercise in futility. Yes, but did you notice how much easier it is with Mobile IE to toss the hardware running your browser into the toilet when you get frustrated with it? That's a real improvement in user satisfaction!

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    2. Re:FINALLY! by verbalcontract · · Score: 1

      The most frustrating thing about the old mobile site was that it straight-up doesn't display tables. Which makes it tough when you want to, say, look up the songs that appear in Guitar Hero, or want to browse the episode information of a TV show.

      Thank fuck they made this version! Much better!

    3. Re:FINALLY! by Swizec · · Score: 1

      Not to sound dense or anything, but accessing wikipedia on my default blackberry browser was rather ... well it worked very well. The thing I've found especially nice is that for whatever reason the content always came first and the menus and crap last so you didn't even have to scroll past all the cruft like on most websites out there to get to the content.

      What's the point of these mobile sites again? Why are they different? Isn't this what's supposed to be solved by different stylesheets for different viewing devices anyway? Far as I know support for this is even already built into most browsers mobile and otherwise.

    4. Re:FINALLY! by Quantos · · Score: 1

      And here I thought that they were beyond help.....

      --
      Some people are only alive because it's against the law for me to hunt them down and kill them.
    5. Re:FINALLY! by Darkness404 · · Score: 1

      A Blackberry is meant for browsing the web, and newer ones especially the Bold are really good at that. But lets say you have an older smartphone for whatever reason or on the built in Java browser on non-smartphones and you will really really appreciate having a mobile site. Add that with a lack of 3G and without a mobile site you will be gouging out your eyes before you actually end up being able to use the content on there.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    6. Re:FINALLY! by moonbender · · Score: 1

      Opera Mini runs on pretty old phones and works extremely well with Wikipedia. The new mobile version uses less bandwidth, but apart from that the full version is fine. The mobile version also loads REALLY quickly -- much faster than full Wikipedia -- on my desktop browser, that's what's really amazing.

      --
      Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
    7. Re:FINALLY! by PGillingwater · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't see the point of this when we already have WikiTap for the G1 and the iPhone.

      --
      Paul Gillingwater
      MBA, CISSP, CISM
    8. Re:FINALLY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why didn't you use one of the mobile versions of Wikipedia that have been available for a while? There's a number of links on Wikipedia itself

    9. Re:FINALLY! by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What's the point of these mobile sites again? Why are they different?

      Low bandwidth, for one. This weekend I was at a campground, right on the edge of having no signal at all (had to walk a half mile from our campsite to get out of totally dead space), and wanted to check the weather report to see if a storm would hit us. m.wund.com is much more useful than www.wunderground.com in such a circumstance.

      Isn't this what's supposed to be solved by different stylesheets for different viewing devices anyway?

      Of course stylesheets help, but often you want to send different content to mobile users.

      --
      Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
      You cannot wash away blood with blood
  2. This site violates Wikipedia's NPOV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Biased towards mobile devices.

  3. cool? by ilblissli · · Score: 0

    i never really had a problem with it on my iphone before but i suppose its always nice to have sites optimized for mobile use (like youporn did hehe)

  4. vs m.google by just_another_sean · · Score: 2, Informative

    It will be interesting to see how it compares to going to m.google.com and linking to a site through a search result. My experience so far is that m.google does a pretty good job of reformatting sites for mobile devices on the fly.

    I'll probably be able to submit some feedback based on testing on the PSP.

    --
    Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
  5. bug: coordinates are displayed twice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    bug: coordinates are displayed twice, as opposed to just once, as in regular wikipedia.

    example:
    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madou_Plaza_Tower

    1. Re:bug: coordinates are displayed twice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fixed!

  6. Accelerometer support? by Sockatume · · Score: 2, Funny

    Shake phone to shuffle "citation needed" tags around page.

    --
    No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    1. Re:Accelerometer support? by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 1

      > Shake phone to shuffle "citation needed" tags around page.

      After all, they are placed essentially at random...

      Maury

    2. Re:Accelerometer support? by Sockatume · · Score: 1

      Thanks for explaining the joke, Maury.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    3. Re:Accelerometer support? by Facegarden · · Score: 1

      >

      After all, they are placed essentially at random...

      Do you have a source for that claim? ;)
      -Taylor

      --
      Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
    4. Re:Accelerometer support? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Well, if you want to configure your phone to turn the shake event into a click on the refresh button, no one's stopping you...

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  7. Native App by ShadyG · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sorry, but wherever possible I avoid booting up the iPhone browser, and prefer to use native apps. There are such apps for Wikipedia available, and free, so I don't see myself using the mobile site. Am I alone in this? I don't go to Netflix, or Facebook, or any other sites anymore where there is an application I can boot up more quickly.

    --
    Nerd Rock In Progress
    1. Re:Native App by purplebear · · Score: 1

      Indeed.

    2. Re:Native App by brion · · Score: 2, Insightful

      By amazing coincidence, the mobile reformatter serves as the backend for our upcoming native app (and probably other peoples' unofficial native apps once they realize they don't have to run their own reformatter proxy).

      --

      Chu vi parolas Vikipedion?

    3. Re:Native App by commodoresloat · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Is there an app you can use to edit wikipedia or just read it? The mobile site doesn't allow editing or logging in.

  8. Screen Size by Kelson · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Having used both the regular site and the mobile site on my G1, I can say that the key advantage of the mobile site is that it's optimized for the small screen size. When the screen is only 2 inches wide, you don't want to clutter it up with sidebars and floated images. Sure, you can get around it a bit with a zoom interface and 2D panning, but it's much simpler if you only need to scroll in one direction: down.

    1. Re:Screen Size by Kelson · · Score: 1

      I should probably clarify that I'm talking about the mobile version of Wikipedia, and not that other site mentioned in the previous post.

    2. Re:Screen Size by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, the other site mentioned (in my experience) specializes in going down.

    3. Re:Screen Size by ilblissli · · Score: 0

      zing!!!!

  9. CSS? by roemcke · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Instead of using a different url for handhelds, why not use a customized CSS together with the "handheld" media type?

    See http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/media.html

    Having two different urls for the same content, but for different target devices breaks the concept of linking. Google and other webpages linking to Wikipedia can not know (and should not know) what kind of device the users have.

    1. Re:CSS? by Carnildo · · Score: 3, Informative

      There are changes that can't be done with CSS. For example, you can hide Wikipedia's navigation framework, but you can't keep the 25k of HTML from being transmitted in the first place. You can resize images with CSS, but you can't keep the larger size from being transmitted, and you can't make the client-side scaling look good.

      --
      "They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
    2. Re:CSS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Two Reasons:

      1) Not all mobile devices heed the media attribute when linking style sheets. For delivering content styled for a mobile platform, the most effective method at this time is browser sniffing. Which is possible through the User-Agent header.

      2) It's common practice to not send some media to a mobile device (large images, video) or to send lower quality media to reduce load times. This cannot be achieved through CSS alone. CSS can hide the content, but the browser will still spend time downloading it.

    3. Re:CSS? by Elwood+P+Dowd · · Score: 1

      You can resize images with CSS, but you can't keep the larger size from being transmitted, and you can't make the client-side scaling look good.

      I thought you could totally do that in webkit w/ whatever this: http://webkit.org/blog/55/high-dpi-web-sites/ turned into. Did that feature ever happen?

      --

      There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
    4. Re:CSS? by master5o1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There is also the server side checking of whether it is a mobile device or not which can aide in determining what page structure should be used. Using the user agent string they can redirect a regular wikipedia url to a mobile url, or simply sub the difference in page structure and have no url redirection.

      --
      signature is pants
    5. Re:CSS? by Elwood+P+Dowd · · Score: 1
      • URLs sent from mobile users to desktop users will send desktop users to the mobile site.
      • Deep links from one platform sent to users on the other platform will redirect to the front page

      These are avoidable, but I run into them constantly.

      --

      There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
    6. Re:CSS? by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · · Score: 1

      It's not really the same content. The normal page simply has too much stuff for a good interface on something as small as a mobile device. Much of the UI is missing, such as the left nav bars and the tabs for article history and discussion. Sure, you could hide the extra stuff with CSS, but on a mobile device, where CPU and bandwidth are bigger issues, that's not a good solution. It's just a case of the right tool for the right job. Some sites are better off making use of CSS for mobile devices and sending the same XHTML, but I don't think this case is one of them.

    7. Re:CSS? by tepples · · Score: 1

      I thought you could totally do that in webkit w/ whatever this: http://webkit.org/blog/55/high-dpi-web-sites/ turned into.

      That page recommends SVG, higher-resolution images scaled down in the <img> element, and use of a new, IE-incompatible CSS attribute to scale background images and list bullets. It doesn't help the bandwidth problem that you will want to send less-detailed vectors or less-detailed bitmaps to a device with fewer dots per inch or bits per second.

    8. Re:CSS? by NNKK · · Score: 2, Interesting

      25KB of navigational HTML implies a rather more fundamental flaw.

  10. Re:Fuck Wikipedia by AndGodSed · · Score: 1

    Wikipedia is communism.

    And how is that bad, comrade?

    --

    Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity

  11. Wikipedia dot communism by tepples · · Score: 1

    Wikipedia is communism.

    As is the rest of the Internet, comrade.

    1. Re:Wikipedia dot communism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck you both, commies.

  12. Don't show all that 'featured article' crap by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Put it on another page. Mobile isn't just about displaying on a small screen; it's about not wasting your user's bandwidth. The page at 'm.wikipedia.org' should have a search box. Done. Put a link to a 'featured article' or some such if you must.

    --
    Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
    1. Re:Don't show all that 'featured article' crap by hampton2600 · · Score: 2, Informative

      We are targeting users who most likely have unlimited bandwidth. That's who mostly would be using a site like this anyway. if you want a really small and efficient version, try the old WAP gateway at mobile.wikipedia.org

      --
      "I don't want to start a holy war here..."
    2. Re:Don't show all that 'featured article' crap by aliens · · Score: 1

      It's not about having unlimited bandwith. It's about getting the data downloaded and rendered as quickly as possible. Why add in extra markup when 3G speeds aren't exactly speedy and mobile devices aren't rendering pages THAT fast yet?

      --
      -- taking over the world, we are.
    3. Re:Don't show all that 'featured article' crap by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 1

      There is never 'unlimited bandwidth.' Any more than there is unlimited memory, unlimited storage space, unlimited processor speed. At least two of those are just as important on a mobile device as the bandwidth part.

      Let alone the difference between 'unlimited bandwidth' and 'unlimited throughput speed.'

      Quite honestly, saying 'we're targeting unlimited bandwidth' is just asinine, in my most humble (well, not so humble) opinion. Ranks right up there with '640 k' and all that.

      By the way, the current version of the Iris web browser for WinMo 6 (uses webkit as it's engine) doesn't show the search bar at the top. I had to open the site in IE to see that it was there.

      --
      Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
    4. Re:Don't show all that 'featured article' crap by hampton2600 · · Score: 1

      Alright, so there is no "unlimited" data plan. You are right. What I meant to say is that we are assuming a reasonable data plan for users of high end devices. Personally, I'd say your comments have much more in common with the '640k' arguement, because mobile technology and bandwidth are moving fast... and we are attempting to build something to last more than a few years. At least with our personal mobile use, we don't worry too much about bandwidth, just load speed. And yes, we have no support for IE and because Microsoft has yet to respond to our requests for aid, the ball is in their court.

      --
      "I don't want to start a holy war here..."
    5. Re:Don't show all that 'featured article' crap by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 1

      Define 'reasonable' data plan. Or is the Encyclopedia for Everyone(tm) only for people who can afford the crazy carrier fees? Or for people who happen to be lucky enough to get a good plan?

      It's still no excuse for not optimizing. And how is moving what is, to what I'd think is the majority of users, unnecessary data off of the main page and to a sub-page, where it's still available, being somehow future-unproof?

      At least with our personal mobile use, we don't worry too much about bandwidth, just load speed.

      You want to talk load speed? An article that most users aren't going to read, because they're hitting Wikipedia for specific info rather than to simply browse whatever happens to come up, isn't going to improve load speeds. And the people who do want to browse the article of the day need only click one whole extra link.

      And if you read my above comments on WinMo browsers, you'll see that IE works just fine, and the Mobile WebKit-based Iris browser does not.

      --
      Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
    6. Re:Don't show all that 'featured article' crap by tepples · · Score: 1

      mobile technology and bandwidth are moving fast

      This might be true in Japan, Korea, the UK, Ireland, and mainland Europe. But North America, home to three-fourths of people who live in an industrialized anglophone country and therefore a huge part of the readership of English Wikipedia, tends to lag in the 3G department.

    7. Re:Don't show all that 'featured article' crap by earthbound+kid · · Score: 1

      Don't let the haters and trolls get ya down. ...What I like is the comment from the one guy who's like, "Man, I don't want to use m.wikipedia; I've already got an app for that!" *Sad trombone*

  13. Re:Help making it not shit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    wikifags got modpoints.

  14. Why another mobile version?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See http://mobile.wikipedia.org Up since December 2008

    1. Re:Why another mobile version?! by Graymalkin · · Score: 1

      For starters the en.m.wikipedia.org site uses the same URL scheme as the normal Wikipedia. By changing the subdomain from "en." to "en.m." you're magically using the mobile version of Wikipedia. This also allows easy links different Wikipedia site translations, this is the German version of this page. The old mobile site is fine for accessing with older or less capable devices or if you have an extreme bandwidth constraint. The newer mobile page (which has actually been live for quite a while) gives a much better experience on more capable devices.

      --
      I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
    2. Re:Why another mobile version?! by Kelson · · Score: 1

      Because this one is aimed at high-functioning mobile browsers, not at bare-minimum browsers. The old mobile site is practically text-only and breaks each article into dozens of tiny pages in order handle low-bandwidth and low-memory devices. The newer site is more focused on formatting the page to maximize space and readability on a device that can handle modern web pages, but has a teeny tiny screen.

      Compare:

      Mona Lisa on new mobile site.
      Mona Lisa on old mobile site.

      Now tell me which one you'd rather read, assuming you had a device that could handle both.

    3. Re:Why another mobile version?! by zevans · · Score: 1

      Now I've downloaded the article on Mona Lisa, my phone is following me around the room...

      --
      "... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
  15. Please don't cripple the iPhone by einTier · · Score: 2, Interesting
    If this automatically redirects the iPhone to the wikipedia mobile site, I hope that there will be an easy link to click back to the "real" fully enabled site.

    I am extremely tired of websites suddenly realizing that the iPhone is a cell phone and immediately redirecting me to the "useful" mobile site, which is usually optimized for WAP devices. Even worse, the majority of them do not allow you to access the fully enabled site in any way, shape, or form. Look, I can understand that some iPhone users would prefer to see the WAP site. However, one of the selling points of the iPhone for me is that it has a web browser that allows me to navigate and read any site. Please allow me to keep using the full functionality of the iPhone and your website and quit trying to dumb it down for me.

    --
    -------------------------------------------------- $665.95 -- retail price of the beast.
    1. Re:Please don't cripple the iPhone by Kelson · · Score: 2, Interesting

      So far, I haven't seen them do any automatic redirecting. But they do detect iPhone and Android browsers on the regular site and add a link at the top of the page saying "View this page on Wikipedia's mobile site."

    2. Re:Please don't cripple the iPhone by cmelbye · · Score: 1

      I'm curious, what about the regular interface do you like that isn't present on the obile interface for Wikipedia?

    3. Re:Please don't cripple the iPhone by orngjce223 · · Score: 1

      For one, you can actually edit the 'pedia...

      --
      Note: I was 13 when I wrote most of this. Take with several grains of salt.
  16. Minification is not a bad thing by greenreaper · · Score: 1

    If they focussed on stripping down the size of the Javascript and CSS, and ran it through the YUI compressor, they could make a big difference to site responsiveness for everyone, not just mobile users. It probably wouldn't hurt their bandwidth bill, either. As it is, there are two CSS/JS files that, uncompressed, are larger than 25kb (and two others that come perilously close). Guess what? This means they don't go into the iPhone cache, and have to be reloaded every time.

  17. Great! by sootman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And a good mobile version of Slashdot is coming... when?

    --
    Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
    1. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right after they have a good desktop version. In short, never.

    2. Re:Great! by lamasquerade · · Score: 1
      Actually of all news sites I find Slashdot loads the best. I'm using a Nokia with a fairly small screen, not an iPhone sized one, and it manages to get the column of stories the right width so I don't have to scroll around (well, other than down), and the same with comments. It could be a lot smaller bandwidth wise of course, and I'd love an m.slashdot.org. But compared to mainstream news sites it is magnificent.

      And what the FUCK is with mainstream news sites' mobile version being so pathetic? m.theage.com.au is just about worthless - it shows about 6-10 stories in a few categories. Why not show the whole paper like the regular site? If I'm on a long train journey I get through the interesting stories (if any) in about 5 minutes...

      --

      // It had been Fat's delusion for years that he could help people. --Philip K. Dick, Valis

    3. Re:Great! by Zebedeu · · Score: 1

      Opera Mini formats Slashdot perfectly on my mobile phone.

      I don't know if the magic is being done by Slashdot using some sort of browser indentification, or by Opera (Opera Mini accesses the web through a proxy run by Opera), but the resulting page looks nothing like the normal Slashdot page, and is much smaller too.

      In fact, you can configure Opera Mini to get the full page (deselect "Mobile View") and you can see the difference both in layout and in size.

    4. Re:Great! by Mr_Silver · · Score: 1

      And a good mobile version of Slashdot is coming... when?

      Avantslash is what you need. It'll produce a mobile version which is perfect for Windows Mobile, Smartphones, Blackberries and iPhone. I use it every day to read Slashdot on the train. Disclaimer: I wrote it.

      I did read the site linked in your signature and commend you for a making a good effort. To be honest, although mine is more convoluted, I think it produces a better result. However if you've got some ideas on how to improve it then do let me know.

      I'm aware than h1 tags aren't rendering properly on the iPhone causing the headline to be smaller than the actual text in landscape mode. I'm not sure why that is, but I'm working on it.

      --
      Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
  18. Grawp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So that explains why I saw Grawp at the Apple Store the other day buying 10 iphones.

  19. Re:Native App - mod parent up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    mod parent up