vpFREE2 Forums

XVP - vpfree2.com mobile issues/feedback

(I'm posting this on vpFREE so that others can see it and comment, which I thought would be better than a private message to the vpfree2 admin.)

I first want to commend the vpfree2 folks for their work. Hopefully my feedback below can help you to make the experience for a mobile user even better.

I went to vpfree2.com/mobile on my cellphone, which is a Motorola Razr. While I found it useful, there were some problems. These may or may not occur on other cellphones:

1) Text doesn't wrap, so you can't see a lot of the information. For the casino or game info, much of the information is truncated (see below). This is the most serious problem, at least when using my phone. [Probably a stylesheet issue, since the HTML has almost no formatting information. Might also just be my phone :(]

2) There is a margin on the top and left of each page that reduces the amount of visible text even further. [I suggest no margins.]

3) The 'Find By Name' feature is a little picky. For example, if I enter "harrahs", it finds nothing. You have to enter either "harrah" or "harrah's". [I suggest stripping any punctuation, spaces, etc.]

4) Search results should be displayed on top. I couldn't even tell the search was successful until I scrolled down. The "Find By Name" and text field take up the entire first screen on my phone. Upon scrolling down, the first 10 casinos were listed but truncated like this:

Harrah's Atlantic C
Harrah's Cherokee (Che
Harrah's Chester (Chest
Harrah's Council Bluffs
Harrah's Joliet (Joliet,
Harrah's Lake Tahoe (S
Harrah's Las Vegas (La
Harrah's Laughlin (Laug
Harrah's Metropolis (M
Harrah's N Kansas City

5) The Previous/Next buttons should be repeated both above and below the search results for easy navigation. I had to scroll all the way to the top to go the next page. [minor]

6) Selecting "Next" gave "No Casinos found for you". Strangely, the "Next" button works fine from my computer's web browser, showing the next 10 casinos, but not on my phone. [major problem]

7) If I select "Harrah's Las Vegas" and then "Best Games + Machine", I do get the list of games, but again they are truncated like this:

99.54% JoB 1-2-3-4-
99.17% BP 1-2-3-4-5-
98.98% DDB 1-1-3-4-
98.91% DW44 1-2-3-4
98.45% JoB 1-2-3-4-
98.01% BP 1-2-3-4-5-

Selecting the first line, 99.54% JoB, yields the following truncated summary:

99.54% JoB 1-2-3-4-6-
(1) $5/$10/$25 1 Play Slant
(6) $10/$25 1 Play Slant (
(3) $100 1 Play MG Slant i

[I apologize for repeating the truncation issue, I just wanted to report what I experienced]

8) I was surprised to see NSU listed as DW44 for some casinos. I later found out that it's supposed to say "NSU" on the end, but was being truncated, so this is ok.

Probably more than you wanted to know...but I again thank you for the effort. As I said, if the truncation issue is fixed, vpfree2 is very useful even from a cellphone!

JD

Good posting.

I have a Dell AXIM X30 pocket pc and the text lines do wrap around. I'm
using Windows mobile 2003 SE. There is an option for "one column"
display which I have turned on.

Are there display options available on your phone?

Dennis
vp-connoisseur

(I'm posting this on vpFREE so that others can see it and comment, which I thought would be better than a private message to the vpfree2 admin.)

I first want to commend the vpfree2 folks for their work. Hopefully my feedback below can help you to make the experience for a mobile user even better.

I went to vpfree2.com/mobile on my cellphone, which is a Motorola Razr. While I found it useful, there were some problems. These may or may not occur on other cellphones:

1) Text doesn't wrap, so you can't see a lot of the information. For the casino or game info, much of the information is truncated (see below). This is the most serious problem, at least when using my phone. [Probably a stylesheet issue, since the HTML has almost no formatting information. Might also just be my phone :(]

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Yes.. great discussion & very helpful.

A few quick comments (warning: somewhat technical)

1. I don't have access to a RAZR or an emulator for it, so I'm not able to directly test the site for that phone

2. It's impossible for us to support all mobile phones. There are many hundreds of phone-specific issues. There are companies that do this (that is, whose business is to handle all those phone-specific issues for people like us), but we can't afford to pay them!

3. New phones generally support either html browsing (via a built-in browser) or a downloaded one (like opera mini)-- and some now support javascript, so the main (non-mobile site) might even work fine for them. Old phones use "WAP" (or "WML") which, while it has it advantages, is being phased out in favor of real html. At the moment, our mobile site does NOT properly support older-style WAP phones... and I'd bet the RAZR John has is a WAP phone (*** does anyone know ?).

3. On launch we decided to support only "new" phones with browsers, such as iphones, windows mobile, blackberries, etc. It's on my list to roll out proper WAP support (for older phones)-- but even when the vpfree2 WAP service is available, its not clear it will work on any particular phone such as the RAZR (or a particular version of it). If there are folks out there with "old" WAP phones who desire mobile access, please send us a note (via the vpfree2 site). We'll need you to help test anything we develop.

Thanks...

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, Cielaszyk <cacti-az@...> wrote:

Good posting.

I have a Dell AXIM X30 pocket pc and the text lines do wrap around. I'm
using Windows mobile 2003 SE. There is an option for "one column"
display which I have turned on.

Are there display options available on your phone?

Dennis
vp-connoisseur

>(I'm posting this on vpFREE so that others can see it and comment, which I thought would be better than a private message to the vpfree2 admin.)
>
>I first want to commend the vpfree2 folks for their work. Hopefully my feedback below can help you to make the experience for a mobile user even better.
>
>I went to vpfree2.com/mobile on my cellphone, which is a Motorola Razr. While I found it useful, there were some problems. These may or may not occur on other cellphones:
>
>1) Text doesn't wrap, so you can't see a lot of the information. For the casino or game info, much of the information is truncated (see below). This is the most serious problem, at least when using my phone. [Probably a stylesheet issue, since the HTML has almost no formatting information. Might also just be my phone :(]

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Greetings,

It seems to me that newer phones like iPhones with large displays and full-fledged browsers don't need vpfree2.com/mobile, because they can display full web pages and therefore can just use the regular vpfree2.com site. IMO, the main purpose of a shorter vpfree2.mobi or vpfree2.com/mobile website is for older and smaller displays and/or limited bandwidth, like on the Razr.

According to some phone websites, the browser in a Razr is apparently the "Motorola Information Browser WAP 2.0". There are almost no settings for it, either while in the browser or in the phone settings, and I see no way to turn wrapping on or off.

It does have the ability to set up a "Browser Session"; the only defined session supplied on my phone is "Media Net" (I have AT&T). The "Media Net" session settings have "Service Type 1" set to HTML (I found this out by copying it to a new entry). When setting up a new session, you can choose between WAP (Secure/Connectionless/None) or HTTP (Secure/none). I tried setting up a new HTML session that launches directly to vpfree2.com/mobile, but it behaves the same, i.e. no wrapping. Setting it to WAP results in "Server not available".

The browser window shows a vertical scrollbar, but not a horizontal scrollbar. This seems very odd. If I go to Media Net Home, text does wrap, but each section is enclosed in a little box, which may in fact force the wrapping. More likely, they are serving the page as XHTML MP. Per the Wikipedia page on WAP 2.0, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Application_Protocol:

"XHTML Mobile Profile (XHTML MP), the markup language defined in WAP 2.0, is made to work in mobile devices. It is a subset of XHTML and a superset of XHTML Basic. A version of cascading style sheets (CSS) called WAP CSS is supported by XHTML MP."

So it's clear that you need to serve the page as XHTML MP for it to work on WAP 2.0 browsers, and to use WAP CSS for the stylesheets. Per the Wikipedia XHTML MP page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XHTML_Mobile_Profile, the DOCTYPE must specify a version of xhtml-mobile, rather than xhtml1-transitional, which is what's currently used. I wonder if just that change alone might be enough to make the site work on a WAP 2.0 browser? Of course it would be best to do whatever else is needed, such as the stylesheets. The MIME type used to serve the page is usually important too: "The MIME type for XHTML Mobile Profile is 'application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml'."

Developershome.com has tutorials on both XHTML MP http://www.developershome.com/wap/xhtmlmp/ and WAP CSS http://www.developershome.com/wap/wcss/.

Hope all of this helps. I'd be happy to test the site any time if you make any changes.

JD

···

----- Original Message ----

From: "vpfree2@ymail.com" <vpfree2@ymail.com>
To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 9:57:30 AM
Subject: [vpFREE] Re: XVP - vpfree2.com mobile issues/feedback

Yes.. great discussion & very helpful.

A few quick comments (warning: somewhat technical)

1. I don't have access to a RAZR or an emulator for it, so I'm not able to
directly test the site for that phone

2. It's impossible for us to support all mobile phones. There are many
hundreds of phone-specific issues. There are companies that do this (that is,
whose business is to handle all those phone-specific issues for people like us),
but we can't afford to pay them!

3. New phones generally support either html browsing (via a built-in browser) or
a downloaded one (like opera mini)-- and some now support javascript, so the
main (non-mobile site) might even work fine for them. Old phones use "WAP" (or
"WML") which, while it has it advantages, is being phased out in favor of real
html. At the moment, our mobile site does NOT properly support older-style WAP
phones... and I'd bet the RAZR John has is a WAP phone (*** does anyone know
?).

3. On launch we decided to support only "new" phones with browsers, such as
iphones, windows mobile, blackberries, etc. It's on my list to roll out proper
WAP support (for older phones)-- but even when the vpfree2 WAP service is
available, its not clear it will work on any particular phone such as the RAZR
(or a particular version of it). If there are folks out there with "old" WAP
phones who desire mobile access, please send us a note (via the vpfree2 site).
We'll need you to help test anything we develop.

Thanks...

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, Cielaszyk wrote:
>
> Good posting.
>
> I have a Dell AXIM X30 pocket pc and the text lines do wrap around. I'm
> using Windows mobile 2003 SE. There is an option for "one column"
> display which I have turned on.
>
> Are there display options available on your phone?
>
> Dennis
> vp-connoisseur
>