Overview of development libraries

[Influence]

Greetings everyone,

i've just stumbled across this group and haven't had the time to fully
read through all the posts yet. So forgive me in case I'm re-asking
questions.

Anyway, I'm a web developer currently implementing a mobile
application targeted for the iPhone. While doing so I found myself
creating a whole lot of touchscreen specific user interface elements.
I'm talking about keypads for numbers, easy accessible calendars and
the likes. Basically it's all about handling as much input as possible
through application specific controls and make little use of the space
taking virtual keyboard.

Probably a whole lot of developers are in the same situation just now,
which raises interest for libraries and frameworks that provide
standardized touchscreen-enabled controls and mimic the look and feel
of the iPhone UI.

So, what projects are out there concerning this and in general try to
cover other iPhone development issues like removing of the address
bar, the meta-tag thingy etc.? And is iPhoneWebdev planing to set up
something like a wiki or faq collection to have all this information
bundled in one place?

Johannes

[Christopher Allen]

On 7/3/07, Influence <Ma...@j-lechner.de> wrote:
> i've just stumbled across this group and haven't had the time to fully
> read through all the posts yet. So forgive me in case I'm re-asking
> questions.
>
> Anyway, I'm a web developer currently implementing a mobile
> application targeted for the iPhone. While doing so I found myself
> creating a whole lot of touchscreen specific user interface elements.
> I'm talking about keypads for numbers, easy accessible calendars and
> the likes. Basically it's all about handling as much input as possible
> through application specific controls and make little use of the space
> taking virtual keyboard.
>
> Probably a whole lot of developers are in the same situation just now,
> which raises interest for libraries and frameworks that provide
> standardized touchscreen-enabled controls and mimic the look and feel
> of the iPhone UI.

We are slowly getting to that point, lost admist trivialities of
things like setting viewports and such. There was some praise
www.gasapps.com zipcode input technique (archive at
http://groups.google.com/group/iphonewebdev/browse_thread/thread/5044a0c6ce2bdb4a/3015dada6ecf5b8b?lnk=gst&q=gasapp&rnum=2#3015dada6ecf5b8b
) and I'd love to see some things like that standardized so it is easy
for us to keep consistency and resuse.

> So, what projects are out there concerning this and in general try to
> cover other iPhone development issues like removing of the address
> bar, the meta-tag thingy etc.?

On removing address bar:
http://groups.google.com/group/iphonewebdev/browse_thread/thread/c064b183c1207a98/dd79332910e4695c

On best practices re: viewport, orientation, scaling:
http://groups.google.com/group/iphonewebdev/browse_thread/thread/e041ae0357dc62dc

http://groups.google.com/group/iphonewebdev/browse_thread/thread/f43493a828dffdb3

http://groups.google.com/group/iphonewebdev/browse_thread/thread/b09a202d34daab51

> And is iPhoneWebdev planing to set up
> something like a wiki or faq collection to have all this information
> bundled in one place?

Yes. Still in progress, as I'm evaluating what ones with work best for
both iPhone and Desktop. Probably will have a better homepage at
www.iPhoneWebDev.com later today, and a group blog.

-- Christopher Allen

[SunboX]

i've tried to get mootools javascript framework to run on iphone. But
a the moment i havn't an iphone and cant do any tests :(
here's the link: http://forum.mootools.net/viewtopic.php?id=4052

On Jul 3, 4:52 pm, "Christopher Allen" <Christoph...@iPhoneWebDev.com>
wrote:

> On 7/3/07, Influence <M...@j-lechner.de> wrote:
>
>
>
> > i've just stumbled across this group and haven't had the time to fully
> > read through all the posts yet. So forgive me in case I'm re-asking
> > questions.
>
> > Anyway, I'm a web developer currently implementing a mobile
> > application targeted for the iPhone. While doing so I found myself
> > creating a whole lot of touchscreen specific user interface elements.
> > I'm talking about keypads for numbers, easy accessible calendars and
> > the likes. Basically it's all about handling as much input as possible
> > through application specific controls and make little use of the space
> > taking virtual keyboard.
>
> > Probably a whole lot of developers are in the same situation just now,
> > which raises interest for libraries and frameworks that provide
> > standardized touchscreen-enabled controls and mimic the look and feel
> > of the iPhone UI.
>
> We are slowly getting to that point, lost admist trivialities of

> things like setting viewports and such. There was some praisewww.gasapps.comzipcode input technique (archive athttp://groups.google.com/group/iphonewebdev/browse_thread/thread/5044...

> ) and I'd love to see some things like that standardized so it is easy
> for us to keep consistency and resuse.
>
> > So, what projects are out there concerning this and in general try to
> > cover other iPhone development issues like removing of the address
> > bar, the meta-tag thingy etc.?
>

> On removing address bar:http://groups.google.com/group/iphonewebdev/browse_thread/thread/c064...
>
> On best practices re: viewport, orientation, scaling:http://groups.google.com/group/iphonewebdev/browse_thread/thread/e041...
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/iphonewebdev/browse_thread/thread/f434...
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/iphonewebdev/browse_thread/thread/b09a...

>
> > And is iPhoneWebdev planing to set up
> > something like a wiki or faq collection to have all this information
> > bundled in one place?
>
> Yes. Still in progress, as I'm evaluating what ones with work best for

> both iPhone and Desktop. Probably will have a better homepage atwww.iPhoneWebDev.comlater today, and a group blog.
>
> -- Christopher Allen

[Jeffrey903]

I was playing around with Jajah.com today on the iPhone, and when I
went to type in my phone number, I noticed it pulling up a keyboard
that only offered a numberpad (one that was built into the iPhone). I
can't figure out how they forced the browser to only accept numbers
(thus pulling up a number only keypad), since they use AJAX to load
the page - it's not hardcoded.

If anyone can figure out how they did this, please let me know.

--Jeff

[SunboX]

hm, maybe because the input has no type:

<input maxlength="20" name="num_source" id="num_source">

[Erwin Harte]

On 7/3/07 1:54 PM, Jeffrey903 wrote:
> I was playing around with Jajah.com today on the iPhone, and when I
> went to type in my phone number, I noticed it pulling up a keyboard
> that only offered a numberpad (one that was built into the iPhone). I
> can't figure out how they forced the browser to only accept numbers
> (thus pulling up a number only keypad), since they use AJAX to load
> the page - it's not hardcoded.
>
> If anyone can figure out how they did this, please let me know.

How do you reproduce this? I get the regular on-screen keyboard when I select
the input fields there.

Erwin.

[Jeffrey903]

I can't seem to reproduce this, but that is because I can't seem to
get it to login on my iPhone. But, if you login to Jajah on a normal
browser, you'll see that you can't type a letter in the textbox where
you add your phone number. I swear I saw the numberpad on the iPhone.

[Ronan]

It looks like text inputs with names that contain "phone" or
"zip" (and possibly others) trigger the special numeric keyboards.

There's a demo here:

http://iphone.ronandowling.com/input/

-r

[kenny saunders]

Awesome. I was just wondering how that worked

Sent from my iPhone

[Jeffrey903]

Thanks so much for figuring this out!

[Erwin Harte]

On 7/4/07 5:26 PM, Ronan wrote:
> It looks like text inputs with names that contain "phone" or
> "zip" (and possibly others) trigger the special numeric keyboards.
>
> There's a demo here:
>
> http://iphone.ronandowling.com/input/

For what it's worth, I looked at how liberal the name matching is:

http://www.iphonewebdev.com/examples/input.html

All of these trigger the telephone keypad:

phone
phone_suffix
prefix_phone
megaphone
phonetic

All of these cause the keyboard to start out in numeric mode:

zip
zip_suffix
prefix_zip
zippo
unzip

So it looks like they literally just look for "phone" or "zip" -anywhere- in
the name of the input field.

Any others that anyone has noticed?

Erwin.

[Christopher Allen]

There is also the "URL" keyboard that you get when you enter URLs,
which has the . / on it and a .com. However, we've tried url, http,
website, webpage, and homepage so far, but none give the URL keypad.

I've added this to the Open Questions page
http://barcamp.pbwiki.com/iPhoneDevCampOpenQuestions

-- Christopher Allen

[bdj21ya]

Hmm. So this works great for text input, but what about for
javascript "prompts". Do I just need to write my own prompt function
that uses a text input?

[Erwin Harte]

On 7/5/07 12:43 PM, Erwin Harte wrote:
> On 7/4/07 5:26 PM, Ronan wrote:
>> It looks like text inputs with names that contain "phone" or
>> "zip" (and possibly others) trigger the special numeric keyboards.
>>
>> There's a demo here:
>>
>> http://iphone.ronandowling.com/input/
>
> For what it's worth, I looked at how liberal the name matching is:
>
> http://www.iphonewebdev.com/examples/input.html
>
> All of these trigger the telephone keypad:
>
> phone
> phone_suffix
> prefix_phone
> megaphone
> phonetic

Still no luck finding the one that triggers the "URL" keyboard, but I did find
out that having "mobile" or "cellular" in the input field's name also triggers
the telephone keypad.

Erwin.

[Erwin Harte]

On 7/6/07 7:58 PM, Erwin Harte wrote:
> On 7/5/07 12:43 PM, Erwin Harte wrote:
>> On 7/4/07 5:26 PM, Ronan wrote:
>>> It looks like text inputs with names that contain "phone" or
>>> "zip" (and possibly others) trigger the special numeric keyboards.
>>>
>>> There's a demo here:
>>>
>>> http://iphone.ronandowling.com/input/
>> For what it's worth, I looked at how liberal the name matching is:
>>
>> http://www.iphonewebdev.com/examples/input.html
>>
>> All of these trigger the telephone keypad:
>>
>> phone
>> phone_suffix
>> prefix_phone
>> megaphone
>> phonetic
>
> Still no luck finding the one that triggers the "URL" keyboard, but I did find
> out that having "mobile" or "cellular" in the input field's name also triggers
> the telephone keypad.

There's also a slightly different keyboard used for email addresses, where the
space bar is replaced with "@", "." and ".com" instead of the URL's ".", "/"
and ".com", and the "@123" button for the numeric keyboard is a "_123" button
instead. How to get it? Frankly I'm not sure it's even possible.

If you include "search" in the name of the field, the "Go" button is changed
to a "Search" button.

All of these keywords (zip, phone, cellular, mobile, search) are strings that
someone who's decrypted the restore disk image could find in
/System/Library/Frameworks/UIKit.framework/UIKit.

http://iphone.fiveforty.net/wiki/index.php/Decrypt_Firmware

Erwin.

[Dean Hamack]

Added expanding and collapsing sections, added a 40 pixel space to the right
of the text areas to allow for finger scrolling, and hopefully fixed the
google map link. Works on all browsers including windows mobile. Comments
are welcome:

http://www.bushidodesigns.net/iphone/demo/

[Gerald Buckley]

Dean, when expanding a second section without first collapsing the
second... I get some weird duplicated section business on my iPhone.
Didn't try any other agents.

Gerald

On Jul 9, 2007, at 11:59 AM, Dean Hamack <bushido...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Dean Hamack]

On 7/9/07 10:13 AM, "Gerald Buckley" <gera...@mac.com> wrote:

> Dean, when expanding a second section without first collapsing the
> second... I get some weird duplicated section business on my iPhone.
> Didn't try any other agents.

Interesting. Doesn't do that on iphoney, so I have no way of replicating it.

One thing that might be helpful to others: when expanding and collapsing the
sections, it had a tendancy to "bounce", rather than staying in place on the
screen. I had to add anchor links to stop this. So when you click on a
section name it targets an area right above it to keep it in place on the
screen.