xmlHttpRequest and Opera for the Series60
A while ago Opera released their mobile platform, which generally speaking is a tool for developing applications for mobile devices using web technologies. AJAX figures prominently into the mix, of course, that being one of the watchwords of the day. I’ve mentioned the whole AJAX and mobile consideration previously. I’ve run across a few more recent posts about the topic though, so I took another look.
What confused me the first time I looked at the Opera platform was that it didn’t appear to be a regular use browser at all. From what I can tell it’s more like the Yahoo Widget Engine (formerly Konfabulator), an execution environment for Javascript. What gets me all hot and bothered about web apps is tied very closely to the distribution model. And the Opera Platform just confuses me in that respect. If I want to write some slick little app that can run in either desktop browser or mobile phone can I just toss the thing up online? I’m not so sure.
Their heart is in the right place though. Allowing mobile apps to tie into the same information sources that are driving the wired web is a good idea. Totally behind you on that one. But allowing use of browser resident apps that make use of AJAX is the other side, and it’s really necessary. So on a whim I downloaded the latest Opera for Series60 to my 6680 and tried out my little AJAX test. It worked! I had tried the test app on a bunch of different browsers on Series60 before, a few Sony phones, and the Palm devices. Nothing else had come even close to working.
Okay, so now we’re cooking with gas at least. I think the Opera Platform is just meant to extend the browser to interact with data on the phone, which is the reason for drawing the distinction when marketing the Platform. Personally however, I just found that confusing. Opera has a pretty kick ass mobile browser there, which I am very happy to now pimp thusly: Go grab the Series60 version of the Opera browser if you have a phone that it works on. Try it out. Some very impressive stuff going on there.
If you want to fool around with some of the stuff, or find out exactly what it was that I’m playing with, I put up my test setup on Ning. If you sign up for an account on Ning you can view the source of the files, and if you want copy my app and try out your own tests. Russ wanted to know if the JSON inclusion techniques work, but I have a ton of other stuff to do so I’m not gonna play with that now. But I have to admit I am curious about it. If someone tries it please leave me a comment.
