UBB.Developers Forums UBB.threads 6 V6 Modifications Templates Template/skin for Palm/PDA access

Has anyone developed either a skin/template or a special set of pages that provide for easy navigation from a Palm/Smartphone/PocketPC browser? I have a Treo 600, and would really like to be able to browse for new posts on our message board (www.pdga.com/msgboard/ubbthreads.php).

Sincerely,
Theo Pozzy
PDGA Commissioner and Pdga.com Webmaster

Would be an interesting project - probably a variation on the print page:
https://www.ubbdev.com/forum/printthread.php/Cat/0/Board/templates/main/121018/type/thread

And a combo with the info found here: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/pocket/

I have a CSS style on my site with no graphics for mobile users, but I've never done a template layout for small screens. The only problem is detecting the browser that is being used, and then calling a different style sheet in the showflat and showthreaded sripts based on the results (the last part is easy: I do it now for my article templates). It would be better if it can be automatic, so that first time mobile users automaticly get a site formatted for a small screen...

Once I finish the Facelift mod I'm working on I'll look inot doing this one -it's got a lot of "geek factor"

I think this would be cool too.

Detecting the browser wouldn't be that tricky... you could just embed a little code in ubbt_header.tmpl:

if ($HTTP_USER_AGENT == "mobilebrowser"){
echo "<link rel="stylesheet" href="mobilestyle.css">";
} else {
echo "<link rel="stylesheet" href="$stylesheet">";
}

If you wanted to use entirely different templates and not just stylesheets, it's a little tricker but not much (I did this on an old version of UBB). If I can help let me know.

-Y

Share I'll help if possible

In ubbt.inc.php, find the line:

// --------------------
// set the style sheet
$stylesheet = "{$config['styledir']}/$fstyle.css";

Under this you can add:

if ($fstyle == "pdacss"){
$tempstyle = "pdatemplate";
}

Now if someone selects the style pdacss.css, UBB will pull all the templates from /templates/pdatemplate instead of /templates/default. With a little more code, it could auto-select the PDA style if it detects that the user is on a non-standard browser. However I'm not sure how reliable that would be on all devices.

In this manner it's possible to create a totally stripped down layout and still have the control which templates give you (unlike a solution involving the print thread mechanism).

As far as creating the actual stylesheet and templates... I have my hands a bit full with upgrades on my own site at the moment but I might take that on at some time in the future if someone doesn't get to it first .

-Y

Excellent idea!!!

I too will look into this one when I get the time...