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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."

8 of 70 comments (clear)

  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. 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
  3. 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.

  4. 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.
  5. 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.

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

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

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