Memidex - Memidex handheld/mobile support
The Memidex online dictionary and thesaurus has been redesigned to better support web browsers on handheld and mobile devices while being just as usable (or more) with regular desktop browsers. These changes make over half-a-million Memidex pages more accessible.
Memidex already had several characteristics making it suitable for handhelds and mobiles, including a simple interface, small and fast page downloads, short URLs, and pages coded in XHTML, a standard increasingly used by such devices. Now, Memidex has added even more support, including:
- Complete code separation of content from formatting making browser processing quicker and easier
- Flexible, tableless layout that avoids or eliminates the need for horizontal scrolling and that scales more easily to a variety of displays
- Additional "handheld" CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) code tailoring the appearance of pages for such devices
- CSS3 "media queries" specifying styles based on, in this case, the maximum width of a display. Recent versions of Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera browsers support media queries -- to see the layout change, simply resize the window to less than 640 pixels wide
- No pop-ups, frames, or unnecessary features and formatting
- Automated HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) based content negotiation serving transcoded pages tailored to different browsers (see below)
Depending on the web browser used, all Memidex web pages adhere to most or all of the Mobile Web Best Practices specified by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and, more specifically, pass W3C mobileOK® tests. By extension, Memidex also adheres to most of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines defined by the W3C.
Memidex web modes
In addition, Memidex has several "web modes" to better support handhelds, mobiles, and other devices. By default, the Memidex server automatically selects a web mode based on information provided by the browser. Alternatively, depending on your web browser, you can manually select another web mode through the Memidex Preferences page. The following settings are available:
- Automatic - One of the following Memidex web modes is automatically chosen by the server based mainly on the HTTP "Accept" field sent by your browser.
- Use HTML/XHTML - The pages are encoded as "XHTML Basic 1.1", but they're effectively treated as regular HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). HTML is the most widely used web format, but because HTML syntax varies a lot, it can be less efficient to process. All Memidex features and formatting are available in this mode.
- Use XHTML Basic 1.1 - The pages are encoded as "XHTML Basic 1.1" and treated as XML/XHTML. Because the syntax of XHTML Basic is simpler and stricter, it can be more efficient to process than HTML. All Memidex features and formatting are available in this mode.
- Use XHTML Mobile Profile 1.1 - The pages are encoded as "XHTML Mobile Profile 1.1" and treated as XML/XHTML. The visual formatting is simplified and uses WCSS (Wireless Cascading Style Sheets, a compatible subset of CSS). This mode is intended for browsers with scripting support but with limited display capabilities.
- Use XHTML Mobile Profile 1.0 - The pages are encoded as "XHTML Mobile Profile 1.0" and treated as XML/XHTML. This mode is the same as XHTML Mobile Profile 1.1 except that it doesn't use scripting and thus certain Memidex features are unavailable in this mode.
- Use Compact HTML 1.0 - The pages are encoded as "Compact HTML" and treated as HTML. Compact HTML is a compatible subset of HTML originally developed for DoCoMo mobile phones. This mode has very limited formatting and doesn't use scripting thus making certain Memidex features unavailable.
Last updated: 2009-10-06