lapantz4lessIn this article I am going to cover a few different choices for when it comes to making an iphone friendly version of your site. There are four options I’m going to assess here. I have implemented all four, and each is suitable for its own project type.
Joomla. A fantastic CMS system, where do we start with this. The free template that is out there, is really fantastic, a great job done. Joomla 1.5 ups the ante with the quality of the templates available, and its really now an interesting platform to develop on. Limitations are mainly with the structure of the content, and im not sure how well it plays with installed components/modules, but at a glance, it is impressive. this is the easiest out-of-the-box solution available as far as I am aware, except perhaps using .
Pligg. Another great open source php based website tool. This time its based on reviews. The templates I have seen so far have been immature in my opinion. I have seen some good custom site implementations, but at this point there is no generic available template with which to skin your site, and no built-in template switching based on the useragent. All this is on the way and its available from the pligg forums.
Custom static. This is where you generate all the html once, and then upload it to the site. You would load up a database with the content, prototype your iphone template, then write the codesmith templates to output the files. A good example would be a hotel bookings website, which just contained static content on hotels. The tool I would use to generate these files would be codesmith. The advantage of this is the speed of loading the pages, and the ease of hosting – basically any hosting will do, there are no php/asp.net/etc runtime requirements. No database. Nothing. Everything is very efficient, and the server can run at optimal speed. Of course the disadvantage is there is no search functionality, no ordering, nothing that goes beyond javascript.
Custom dynamic. This is where you write a custom site using php or asp.net that will generate the iphone html on the fly, like any normal dynamic website. To be SEO friendly, we would want urlrewriting. Of course we also need a database and a script engine, such as .net and php, along with all the code to render it. Its advantages are the inverse of the custom static solution. The key question you need to ask yourself is how much dynamic content do you need? This is the most flexible solution, but the development time and the hosting overhead make it less attractive. Its very possible to combine the custom static solution with a custom search page, so you lower development time, and gain all the benefits of the static solution. This is something I will be implementing in my new iphone hotel bookings site.
Regarding iPhone templates, the two templates I looked at were 1) the free one, 2) the knoxtemplate – $9. I have to say that knoxtemplate was worth the money for me. If it saves me 30 mins, then its easily worth it. It has saved me far longer than that. Good luck with your iPhone development, and drop me a line if you need any advice.
Paul Heap is the webmaster behind many sites, including iphone Forex Alerts, and iphone custom website development
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