Small Screen Rendering…
…a sideshow for now (updated 2020)
As stated here and there under site specific info, styles tailored for small screens on mobile devices will kick in on narrow windows/screens.
Nothing particularly advanced in the SSR stylesheet, but it will format pages for small screens in supporting devices/browsers.
Note that I wrote “format”, not “reformat”. Pages are either formatted for larger screens or for smaller, not reformatted from one size to the other. This means less complex styling – not much reliance on selector specificity, but also that some older browsers found on regular computers and older mobile devices won't get much styling – support for them is dropped in favor of new software and devices.
few changes to content for mobiles.
Content in the form of text, images and so on, is not tailored for mobile devices. Thus, some may find these pages heavy on download time/resources for their mobile connections.
I personally do not regard small screens on mobile devices as well suited for viewing web pages that are heavy on content. So choosing and styling images and text to scale well to fit on any screen is all I do on this site.
To me it is more like: “if you have to, or want to, view my stuff on a mobile device, it will work”. I do not intend to tailor everything to mobiles in order to make it load fast and work extremely well on small screens/devices.
funny future.
Not all that long ago we could only talk on mobile devices, and they were not all that mobile either. Things have changed a bit over the last few decades, but we are still just at the beginning of the mobile era. When do we get “built-in” mobile devices directly connected to our brains?
Geolocation of/for mobiles as it works now, is OK in a sence. With “built-in” mobile devices we will have taken the extra steps that some both in marketing and state administrations would like all of us to take for optimal control. Lots of new countermeasures will have to be invented – may become a funny future indeed.
We may not have all that many “built-in” mobile communication devices on the market yet – as we write year 2020, but as lots of people can hardly live without their cellphones these days they have in reality opened up for being under constant surveillance and tracking. Bright new future…
With my own mobiles turned on and within reach for only a few hours a month, my contribution to the “surveillance society” is somewhat limited. That much time on-line covers my needs though, and that is all that matters to me.
sincerely
Hageland 03.aug.2012
12.sep.2020 - updated to reflect changes over time.
last rev: 12.sep.2020
side notes.
mobile devices will take over.
The term “mobile devices” covers a wide range of devices with varying screen sizes, shapes and resolutions. Difficult to be prophetic about which types/sizes that will become most popular over the next few years. But, as “mobile devices” are any devices that are “mobile” and rely on wireless connections most of the time, I am pretty sure mobile devices will dominate the market in numbers.
As both wired, wireless and “strictly mobile” devices rely on wired (fiberoptic) connections up to a point, they load the same “net”. One may hope that wired net is being upgraded around the world to serve the increasing traffic, or else “connecting” both mobiles and wired devices will suffer.
As I perform an update of this page in September 2020, mobile devices have pretty much taken over for all forms of communication all over the world.
limited mobility.
Hot-spots and shades shape mobility for those who rely on mobile devices. Within range it is fine, but once out of range there is not much they can do.
For many that's fine – they hardly ever move out of range anyway. For others it's the opposite – they live and work where they are hardly ever within range. Sometimes I wonder who are most happy with the situation.
Personally I don't like being bugged by sales people and “general chatters” neither on mobile nor on wired devices while deep in my own thoughts, so don't mind being out of range and unplugged most of the time. My mobile is turned off more often than not, so mobility with regard to communication isn't a problem.
Although I do use my mobile for surfing now and then, I prefer doing so within range of my own WiFi. Also prefer Skype over regular phone services on my mobile.