iUI and Opera Mini 5

[gattox]

Hi all.

Does someone know if there will be any chances to get iUI working
under Opera Mini 5 (that could mean iUI working on a BlackBerry for
example). As fa as I can understand there are problems with the
Javascript engine on OM 5. Is someone working on this or it has been
stated as "impossible to do" ?

Thank you in advance for any available informations.

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[Sean Gilligan]

gattox wrote:
> Does someone know if there will be any chances to get iUI working
> under Opera Mini 5 (that could mean iUI working on a BlackBerry for
> example). As fa as I can understand there are problems with the
> Javascript engine on OM 5. Is someone working on this or it has been
> stated as "impossible to do" ?
>

I don't know of anyone working on it, but I haven't heard anyone say it
is "impossible" either. Personally, I have never tried to use iUI on OM
5. iUI has focused mainly on WebKit but works reasonably well on the
latest Firefox (and I've heard it works well on Fennec)

I don't see any items in the Issues DB about Opera, so if you can
document the problems, please create a new issue and make the
information public. You never know who might come along with a patch or
a workaround.

If someone can make it work well and has patches to submit, we'd love to
see them. If they are relatively minor and don't have an adverse effect
on other platforms we should be happy to add them to a future release of
iUI.

-- Sean

[gattox]

Ok, thank you Sean.

From a first very superficial check it seems there's something not
properly working with event handling under Opera Mini but I will try
to be more specific and submit an Issue.

[Remi Grumeau]

Some things work, some other don't …

"Note that because Vega (Opera's graphics library) is not enabled on our proxy servers, things like border-radius, CSS transitions or graphically-intensive effects such as text-shadow blurring – which do work in Opera 10.50 for desktop – are not supported in Opera Mini 5."
see http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/opera-mini-5-developers/#standardssupport

So well … i do support Opera Mini as a wap-compatible browser (like NetFront or other web browser you can find on featured phones).
Anyway, i don't see the point with Blackberry, since the next generation will be using a brand new webkit-based browser
http://mobile.venturebeat.com/2010/02/16/rim-announces-new-blackberry-web-browser-superapps-bes-express-server/
is Opera Mini the current BB default web browser ?

Remi Grumeau
http://www.remi-grumeau.com

[Remi Grumeau]

I have install Opera Mini since 5 beta1 on my phone (Samsung U600) and i must say that it's damn slow to load, not using phone specific keys (scroll on the left side, …) so i'm still using the default built-in NetFront 99% of the time.
And nope, iUI is not working well on Opera Mini 5. No transitions between pages distinct pages and a #top like behaviour with same page but other # reference, without screening it.
And the most problematic issue: Back link (in the top bar) doesn't work (where prev browser button do the job nicely).

If needed, i can video capture my phone ...

Remi

[gattox]

Well, I've tried accessing http://iui-js.appspot.com/samples/music/music.html
from an OM5 downloaded on a Blackberry and from an OM5 microemulator
based instance (try at http://www.opera.com/mobile/demo/): you can see
the main page but whatever you click, buttons, links, nothing happens.
OM5 uses a very particular way for page rendering, basically OM5
redirects a page request to an Opera proxy server which accesses the
requested page, makes some processing and sends back what is called an
OBML (Opera Binary Markup Language) to the handset. Here are some
wordings from the Opera Developer web site (http://dev.opera.com/
articles/view/opera-mini-5-developers/) which better explains the
concept:

"Opera Mini 5 is a thin-client application: when you use it to request
a web page (1), that request is sent off to a server-farm (2); a proxy
server receives the requested web page (3), renders and reformats it,
and then converts it to a light and efficient format developed by
Opera called OBML (4). This is then sent to the Opera Mini client (5),
which displays it on the phone screen (6)."

and then again

"Note that, as all the processing is done on the server and what is
sent to the client is a static snapshot of the web page, some sites
that feature heavy Ajax functionality or background scripting may not
behave quite like you’d expect."

I think most of the probems come from Javascript handling on OM5 and
in fact:

"The majority of JavaScript that is triggered onload should work just
fine, except in cases where those scripts require asynchronous
operations. JavaScript won't run client-side (for instance in response
to user interaction) once the page has finished loading. Plug-ins,
such as Adobe Flash, are not supported."

In practice once the page has been rendered on the browser you have a
lot of problems in handling events because only a very limited subset
of events are available client-side. Weel I start thinking that we are
on the "impossible" side of the problem.

Thank you.
-- Roberto.

On 9 Apr, 08:23, Sean Gilligan <msgilli...@gmail.com> wrote:

[gattox]

Ok, thank you Remi (I was just waiting for some info from you). As far
as I know the webKit BB browser will not be available till the end of
the year (maybe some preview in the late summer).

I've made some more inspections and I think that there will be no
chance to get iUI working under OM5 (and subsequent versions): the
main problems for me, apart from some CSS specific issues as you
pointed out, is with the Javascript engine. From the developer Opera
Mini site:

"Opera Mini 5 is a thin-client application: when you use it to request
a web page (1), that request is sent off to a server-farm (2); a proxy
server receives the requested web page (3), renders and reformats it,
and then converts it to a light and efficient format developed by
Opera called OBML (4). This is then sent to the Opera Mini client (5),
which displays it on the phone screen (6)."

So all the page is generated on an Opera proxy server, translated
into OBML (good for band saving, bad for all the rest) andsent to the
client. All pre-loading Javascript is run served-side, only some
events are handled post-loading. So I think we get stuck with whatever
Javscript must be run after page loading. Again from the Opera
Developer site:

"JavaScript won't run client-side (for instance in response to user
interaction) once the page has finished loading. "

So I think that, unfortunately, the correct wordings should be "iUI
is *totally* not working on Opera Mini 5" instead of "iUI is not
working *well* on Opera Mini 5" and no hope to get it working. Dead
end.

Roberto.

[Remi Grumeau]

Opera Mini 5 is only a 245 kb application so don't expect too much from this tiny thing ;-)
I think we should focus on Opera Mobile, which is focused for touchscreen smartphones where Mini is for smaller phones, where wap design using accesskey is most of the time user-friendlier (see m.foursquare.com for example).

My 0,02$

Remi

[gattox]

Good idea, Remi. But Opera Mobile is only for Windows Mobile and
Symbian S60 if i'm right. The root of my problem was: how can I use an
application designed around iUI on a Blackberry (their current
preloaded browser is horrible). That's was the reason of my attempt
with Opera Mini 5 (which is available on hundreds of phones). What
would you do if someone asked you: "well, may I use that nice webapp
on my BB?" ?

Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

Roberto.

[Remi Grumeau]

i would be honest and just say "no" :-)
Of course, "no, because…" explain why, and propose a dedicated blackberry solution that is compatible with the preloaded browser (no one download or use another web browser than the native one on a phone…). Honesty and clear technical explanations/reasons most of the time save a lot of time and money, and refocus a project on what is clean and technically possible a nice and user friendly way, instead of a wrong or missed sexy look-a-like and slow/buggy experience.

Here again, my 0,02€

R.

[gattox]

Ok, I must completely agree.

Thank you all for the suggestions (and many thanks to Remi in
particular for his patience and support).

Roberto.