RE: 1.4 delivery context

In response to Charles's comments:

> 
> Several issues:
> 
> 1. Meaning
> 
> The text does not make it clear whether the characteristics are minimum  
> specifications, or actual specifications that should be assumed. For  
> example should a developer assume in the absence of other 
> information that  
> the width of a device is 120 px, or that there may be no more 
> than 120 px  
> width available.
> 
> We believe the latter should be the case.

I believe we mean that there is a minimum of 120px


> 
> 2. Colours:
> 
> There are a number of interpretations of "websafe" colours - please  
> provide a reference that unambiguously states which colours are expected  
> to be available.
> 

Which is your favourite/most authoritative reference?

> 3. Security
> 
> In order to build commercial services on the web, secure connections are  
> necessary. In addition, these are widely implemented already. Is 
> there no  
> requirement to support https connections in the mobile space as a best  
> practice?
> 

Well, we're not defining best practice for devices are we? We are defining the minimum spec for a mobile device. I think the point of the minimum spec is to give guidance on the format of pages.

> 4. HTTP
> 
> It is not clear that any transport protocol is guaranteed on the device.  
> Given the requirements to support the regular web, and in 
> particular such  
> things as 30x HTTP responses, it would be appropriate to specify a level  
> of HTTP support in the default characteristics.

We do say in 1.3 "From the perspective of this document this means that services should be available as some variant of HTML over HTTP." but I see your point that we don't make the corresponding statement that devices are assumed to support http.

> 
> 5. Style sheets
> 
> XHTML Basic does not include any support for internal styles. It makes  
> sense, given the problems of latency that are a key constraint in the  
> mobile space, to mandate support for internal styling, but it is 
> not clear  
>  from the current wording what support can be expected (and 
> therefore, as  
> an implementor, what support we are implicitly being required to provide).

I think this is an important point which we should clarify in [Techniques] to the effect that while the minimum is that external style sheets have to be used, an improved experience can be achieved by using internal styles and that this can be determined by the usual mixture of http headers, device descriptions and good old fashioned sorcery.

Received on Wednesday, 8 February 2006 12:56:41 UTC