Mobile skin for TomCat WebVoyage 7.0.4

Tags: advanced, intermediate, mobile, interface, webvoyage, tomcat, elympics
Last Updated: Mar 03, 2010 21:17

• Description
  A snapshot of our mobile skin for TomCat WebVoyage 7.0.4, provided as a development aid for those intending to create their own mobile skin. I felt it was important not to treat mobile users as 2nd class citizens, so this skin allows a fairly complete functionality, including access to MyAccount, etc. to let our clients renew their own items! Course Reserves has been removed however, as this is not used extensively at our institution. I think a good option would be to enable the browse function for this part of WebVoyage, as drop-down lists may become unwieldy in a mobile skin.

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• Author: Tom Pasley
• Institution: Universal College of Learning
• Year: 2010

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• License: CC-BY (NZ)
• Short description: This licence lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon my work, even commercially, as long as they credit me for this creation.
• Link to terms: [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/nz/]

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• Skill required for using this code:
  Intermediate to advanced

State

'Stable' snapshot

This snapshot of our skin is intended to provide a basis and/or assist those wanting to develop their own mobile skin for the TomCat WebVoyage. This snapshot is from version 7.0.4, and may not function as intended on later versions of WebVoyage.

Programming language

Modified from existing Ex Libris stylesheets, and code. Separate functionality has been provided by other enhancements, as noted in the attached spreadsheet.

Software requirements

This skin was created from our own modified version of WebVoyage, and includes some additional code and enhancements which have their own requirements and licences.

Screen captures

Taken using http://iphonetester.com/ (which is not an emulator, but allows screenshots)

Taken using Palm SDK emulator

Author(s) email

t.pasley@ucol.[nospam].ac.nz

Download

Page attachments management can be reached from the top-right menu - 'attachments' after page save.

Working example

http://libcat.ucol.ac.nz/vwebv/searchBasic?sk=mobile

Using Ex Libris open interfaces

and code from TomCat WebVoyage 7.0.4

Changes

Addition 1.1.1 (mobile.redist.zip) 4 Feb 2010

Includes files without Jim Robinson's SpellCheck enabled - mobile/jscripts/spellcheck.js is not required, but leaving it as part of the skin will not cause any issues.

Version 1.1 (this release) 2 Feb 2010

Includes MyAccount functionality. Also fully occupies screens wider than 320px (-thanks to Michael D.)

Version 1.0 (not released)

Did not include MyAccount functionality.

Installation instructions

I would suggest extracting the contents of the attached zip file, examining the changes listed in Mobile skin.xls, (also included in the zip file), and using these to create a pared down copy of your own skin. If you wish, you could try installing a copy on a local drive, globally change the basic colour scheme, and make changes to files at an individual level.

You will of course, need to edit the basic TomCat WebVoyage configuration files:

• webvoyage.properties
• internal.properties
• pageProperties.xml
• xsl/userTextConfigs/pageProperties.xml

I also strongly suggest you look at mobile\xsl\pageTools\frameWork.xsl which contains aspects which you will need to alter to suit your own installation. Also download mobile.redist.zip if you do not have Jim Robinson's SpellCheck installed.

Using a program such as WinMerge, you could try generating patches to apply to a copy of your own skin, but this is a suggestion only.

The New Resources List is not included in the snapshot I’ve made available, as it works by identifying materials issued to our New Books Display clients.

Known issues

Inclusion of Spell-checker code from Jim Robinson:

http://lib-serv.tccd.edu/code/webvoyage/spellcheck/tomcat/index.php

Download mobile.redist.zip if you do not have Jim's SpellCheck installed.

Also includes modified social bookmarking functionality, also originally provided by Jim Robinson.

Best viewed on a screen-size greater than 200 pixels wide, and probably best suited to those on a WIFI connection, as the page sizes are larger than I initially thought, so this skin is most suited to devices which can use WIFI as well as 3G cellular connections, such as iPhones (and Android handsets?).

Comments

Good Luck!

Thanks to those who examined version 1.0, and especially those that provided specific feedback, including Eric Condic, Michael Doran and Simon Huggard.