Mobile web design

hello all
just wanted to know if any one can reccomend a free program for making mobile web site
i have my own site but wanted one for mobile as well tried a couple of convert sites
but didnt work to well so thought i would try to do it myself from start
have dreamwever can this be used or do i need diff prog
cheers
Doug

I don’t know about “free,” but I know there are a whole bunch of companies out there selling mobile app development tools. goMobi is one of them.

cheers Andy will have a look

All websites are mobile, so you can make one with any code editing tool—Dreamweaver included. If you mean a site styled specifically for mobile, then that’s just a question of doing the CSS right. You can either build a separate site, or just offer up different styles for different devices (using @media queries, for example).

There are some ready-made frameworks to help with mobile development, such as 320 and up that you might like to check out. There are also some JavaScript frameowrks for mobile sites, like jQuery Mobile and Sencha Touch.

cheers ralph
my first task was to build sep web for mobile which i have done a simple one to start with by putting it all in folder called mobile and just added mobile to domain name is there some code that i can put to detect if its mobile then send to this folder rather than have two urls if you see what i mean
once again cheers
Doug

There is code that can “sniff” the device/browser type and direct the device to a specific page or site, but the code for this has to be updated regularly and can be a bit of a pain. It’s only really needed on gigantic sites, too. For a small to medium site, it’s usually better just to set different CS styles for different browsers. See this article for an intro to that:

How big is your site?

cheers again ralph my site is not very big have done some work on it
thinking about putting a start page where peeps select mobile or pc then forward them to the correct folder
Doug

Hi dougvcd

What is gaining a rapid acceptace over browser sniffing approaches is to use media queries in you CSS to adapt the style of a site for different screen sizes.

Using this technique you can set css that is specific to say displays of 1200px+, 760px, 550px, web-kit 480px, and 400px, like


@media screen and (min-width: 1200px) {/*styles for this size*/}
@media screen and (max-width: 760px) {/*styles for this size*/}
@media screen and (max-width: 550px) {/*styles for this size*/}
@media screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2) and (max-width: 480px) {/*styles for this size*/}
@media screen and (max-width: 400px) {/*styles for this size*/}

The nice thing is you don’t need Javascript and during development you can use Firefox or Opera Ruler AddOns and set your browser to these sizes to test what it will look like.

In general you want to resize background graphics too match the browser size. Mobile users will generally appreciate this. You often need to make navigation buttons and links larger as the size gets to the 480px range as people are navigating with there fingers not mice (generally I make the buttons larger for all displays as tablets are growing their screen proportions and people again are using their fingers).

Try to make sure that all your content fits well into the mobile size and don’t add anything extra in the desktop version, the mobile users should not loose out.

Just a few recommendations.

Good luck.

Steve

Whatever design you choose for your mobile website should match well with your business or company profile. You should also use certain software applications to make your mobile website user-friendly and exciting for both you and your clients. I am using a cart software for my mcommerce site. It is fun. Easy navigation of web pages using cell phones has helped me get more clients within a shorter period of time.

ok big thanks to all for advice have made a start
if any one want to look the site is my signature
cheers
Doug