Is it possible to develop a web site for a touch based browser without using HTML5 or CSS3?

Question

I'm developing the CSS file for the mobile version of the website my group are working on for our web design coursework, and I was wondering if it was possible to design a site for touch based browsers using the currently ratified specification of HTML and CSS, as the other member are doing for the desktop variant, or am I going to have to use the draft specification of the new language. I'm not intending to use anything too elaborate, I'm only attempting to allow the user to navigate the site with their finger, and the current implementation allows me to activate a dropdown menu on the desktop, but when I try to navigate on my Android handset, nothing happens.

The menu button gets illuminated in the way that all links in my browser do when they get pressed, but nothing happens. The research I've done since this revelation has led me to the conclusion that I'm going to have to experiment with the new spec, though since this is coursework, I'd rather stick with current standards than experimental drafts of new ones.

P.S. I'm only developing an informative site, not an application.

Answer 1

Yes, you can use older versions of HTML. iPhone, Palm OS, Android, and recent versions of the Blackberry OS all use Webkit, which is the same rendering engine that Chrome and Safari use.

In fact, the very first page on the World Wide Web will work just fine.

We'd need to see your code for your navigation bar to troubleshoot, but it's probably something along the lines of using a hover event to display the navigation (touchscreens can't have a hover event).

Answer 2

I can browse to any site on my iphone using the touchscreen. The language is not the problem. Most mobile browsers on smartphones can handle html(4)/css(2) fine. You should be more worried how to show the content so it will be easy to navigate on the site using a (small) touchscreen. Usability testing is your friend here. Browsing a website made for desktop can be very frustrating (not impossible) on a small touch screen. Also the size of images and stuff shouldn't be to big. Since loading those can be a pain. At least the t-mobile(Netherlands) g3 network is slow, if available at all.

Answer 3

Note that the 'currently ratified' version of CSS is CSS1 (from 1996), CSS2.1 isn't yet a W3C Recommendation. So from that point of view the standards your other members are using for the desktop variants are not much more ratified than HTML5 and CSS3.

Answer 4

For sure do it! just ensure links are larger for fingers. Also allow the site to resize.

Most mobile sites are HTML1.0.

You would be silly using html5 + css3 unless you knew that it was only going to be used on an iphone eg. webapps.

And don't forget you can still use JavaScript!

Go For It!