ScientiaMobile

Hiya,

I've got a situation which I'm pretty sure must be fairly common...

I want to create a text input so the user can enter a URL. If the device supports HTML5, I want to be able to use type="url" (as, on the iPhone, this brings up a keyboard customised to make URL input easier, etc.).

However, I can't find a WURFL capability that says whether a device supports HTML5?!... Is this capability coming soon, or is hiding somewhere??

If it doesn't exist, does anyone know a workaround so I can provide <input type="url" ... /> where supported by the device?

Cheers,
James

Hi James,

We are closely watching the HTML5 world to see which capabilities we should add to WURFL, but it's not quite as simple as adding "
html5_support = true", since the support is very fragmented. For example, we have a capability for HTML5 Canvas Drawing (canvas_support), but we do not yet have one for HTML Input types.

In the meantime, you should be safe to assume if a device supports HTML5 Canvas Drawing, that it should have good support for HTML5-specific input elements as well. Do you know that type="url" is an HTML5 spec and not just an iPhone feature?

Hiya Steve,

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, it's a W3C HTML5 standard...
http://www.w3.org/wiki/HTML/Elements/input/url
http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/states-of-th ... #url-state
http://www.w3.org/TR/html-markup/input.url.html

...I was just using iPhone as an example.

I will check out canvas_support. Any idea when new HTML5 capabilities might be coming along?

Cheers,
James

Hi James,

For the time being, a good alternative could be to look at the device OS and version (for ex: iOS, Android 2.X+, WP 7.5+) and serve input-url to those devices (and a simple text field to everything else).

we will inquiry about how to best model HTML5 forms. We don't want to rush and add something that's too specific, but this feature might be valued by many

Thanks

Luca

jhodgski wrote: However, I can't find a WURFL capability that says whether a device supports HTML5?!... Is this capability coming soon, or is hiding somewhere??

Hi jhodgski,

I guess the question is rather about finding out if the browser of the device supports certain HTML5 elements, not the device. It is possible that you can install different browsers on a device, so assigning a "HTML5" capability to a device makes no sense.

html5test.com can detect HTML5 features of a browser, so it is possible to find out if the browser of the device supports <input type="url"> by JavaScript. Maybe it helps you.

We are reviewing which capabilities to add in the future. And having more attention to HTML5 is considered. Of course, there are some challenges, but now that we are a company we can certainly look at them in the face

Helping WURFL users optimizing the user-experience is certainly one great usage of WURFL and we intend to support that as much as possible.

Thank you

I want to create a text input so the user can enter a URL. If the device supports HTML5, I want to be able to use type="url" (as, on the iPhone, this brings up a keyboard customised to make URL input easier, etc.).

kamermans wrote:We are closely watching the HTML5 world to see which capabilities we should add to WURFL, but it's not quite as simple as adding "
html5_support = true", since the support is very fragmented. For example, we have a capability for HTML5 Canvas Drawing (canvas_support), but we do not yet have one for HTML Input types.

Does this answer your question?

Thank you,
Elliot