Web editing with SMS - maybe getting there….

Decided to see if could happily write web pages using text messaging for initially three reasons:
a) If could put tags used regularly in predictive text it would mimic web editors already in existence on pcs
b) Templates - can easily save templates of familiar tags to save retyping each time and just delete any not needed. If a phone doesn’t have templates then can save in drafts each time and make a new message from it.
c) Ease of use on multiple handsets - different manufacturers

Why?
Still looking into options for writing web pages on the go - such as a notes editor but this will be better possibly. Some considerations of mobile web editing vs pc web editing that I discovered, below. Should also mention that had absolutely no knowledge of predictive text before this weekend, other than its existence.

Mobile
Tend to have creative thoughts on the go, do not always have laptop or pc near to hand so useful to record when thinking about them

Predictive text - entered loads of tags (can include up to approx 20 characters), don’t know if it can’t recognise words which start with symbols or its my own incompetence - but it would only pick up the words / letters inside tags so didn’t actually work. Am asking around various places to see if this is possible or not. It would be so useful to use predictive text in this way and I guess it can’t be too hard ?

Using a template and without predictive text was able to type around half a page of code before either pc or laptop had booted up

Some character limits for SMS messaging (depends on who SMS with etc) might mean paying for more than one SMS for a whole page.

When needed a bigger screen, was able to take advantage of a bigger screen than my monitor. Have looked into mobile projectors, found 3 companies but so far no definite news on release dates/pricing into models or as separate items for this year. So used TV out cable for phone and voila!

What I especially liked too, is that could mess around with colours / themes on phone to find ones that were more comfortable on my eyes, although the attached was fine too.

You can use on a digital tv if you have a DV IN socket or if like me you’ve got older tv with no DV IN; have DVD player/recorder/set top boxes all hooked up to a scart unit, can connect through the DVD player:

You may be able to do with other similar AV connection cables / stereo jacks too. TV out is a fairly new feature on phones - available on a few Nokias and have heard rumour that Sony Ericsson are putting as standard in all their new phones - don’t know for others. If anyone out there spending time right now, in hotel/BB rooms with tvs, would be interested to know if they have DV in ?

PC
There is a keyboard so fingers may be able to move more flexibly and enter coding more efficiently - also a range of sophisticated editors (e.g. highlighting rows and tags so can pinpoint errors etc) out there already.

Better for scrolling long rows of text if not using a tv screen or projector.

Getting it out there - SMS to web
Still trying to work out best way of sending SMS to web - at the moment, doesn’t appear to be an easy way of sending directly to my own webspace - many apps exist for sending from web to phone but not other way round.

SMS blogging is option because less likely to have character limits but then would have to cut and paste code into separate web page and upload into your own webspace - which is a pain. If you have set up your own SMS gateway there may be a way of avoiding this but I don’t know enough about the how, yet, to understand if it can be done.

Templates created so far (approx 15 mins to create)
XHTML transitional
CSS
RSS
These three include the most common tags that I have used when writing stuff.

Have done a PHP mini one but seeing that all I know is how to write Hello World - that is all there is in it.

Please let me know if you would like a copy of templates & provide cell/mob no - happy to SMS through if of use. Going to stick with this for now, could be very useful for snippets at least.

This entry was posted on 02/06/2008 at 06:41 pm and is filed under mobsessed, mproject, mobile web design, web design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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