Premium Pack 1.51 > Apple iPad and other mobile devices

Quick Tip
Normally you do not have to make any configuration changes for mobile devices. Your help will be displayed automatically on the iPad and iPhone with two-finger scrolling. Users visiting with Android and other devices will receive a warning message that they cannot view the help.

WebHelp published with Premium Pack skins is viewable on Apple's iPad and iPhone devices. The WebHelp is currently not compatible with Android smartphones and tablets or other smartphones, but users who visit your help pages with these devices will be warned automatically. If you wish, you can also redirect users visiting your sites with any mobile devices to an alternative page. You can enter separate page targets for four mobile device categories (Android, iPad, iPhone, Other).

Full support for mobile touchscreen devices can only provided in a future major version update because of the profound differences between the new touchscreen browsers and normal desktop browsers. Currently, Apple touchscreen devices only support scrolling the TOC, Index, Search and topic content on the page with two fingers. Android touchscreen devices do not support scrolling elements of this kind at all – this is why they are not compatible with WebHelp in its current form.

How the help is handled on iPad and iPhone

The navigation and topic panes must be scrolled using two-finger gestures on both the iPad and the iPhone on iOS 4. On iOS 5 and later single-finger scrolling is supported. If you get complaints about this from your users just tell them to update their Apple device to iOS 5, which also includes a lot of bug fixes. Earlier versions of iOS should no longer be used.

On the iPad the WebHelp window is automatically locked to the screen dimensions of the iPad. When the user rotates the iPad the display may zoom to a larger magnification but you can always lock it back to the screen dimensions again by pinching. (Preventing this automatic zooming would also make it impossible for users to zoom at all, so we decided not to do this.) If your WebHelp has a third frame at the top iPad users can flick this out of the way to hide it so that they can browse on the full screen area.

On the iPhone the help window size is set to a usable virtual size that allows the user to get a reasonably good view by scrolling the window back and forth and up and down. However, the tiny screen of the iPhone cannot really be used for reading extensive WebHelp sites with the iPhone. All that can be achieved is minimum compatibility.

Two-finger scrolling information message

iPad and iPhone users who are still using iOS 4 must scroll the TOC and topics with two fingers. Since many users are not aware of this, a message explaining it is displayed automatically at the beginning of the browsing session. Really, however, users of these devices should all update to iOS 5 as soon as possible.

A standard message in English is preconfigured. You can change this message with the configuration variables stored in the skin.

Redirecting iPhone and iPad users to a different web page

PP WebHelp works pretty well on the iPad with its large screen. The iPhone is a different matter: Although the help will work on the iPhone, its small screen makes browsing it quite difficult for anything more than a quick look. You may want to redirect iPhone visitors to a different web page automatically.

You can enter separate URLs to redirect both iPhone and iPad users to different pages in the configuration variables stored in the skin. If you leave these variables empty the help will be displayed on the iPhone and iPad. If you enter an URL users visiting the site with these devices will be redirected.

Disabling/enabling the top frame for iPhone visitors

On the small iPhone screen a third frame at the top of your WebHelp can make the help page even more difficult to read. By default, the top third frame is hidden on the iPhone. You can enable it with the configuration variables stored in the skin.

Android phones and tablets and other mobile devices (Blackberry, Windows CE, Symbian, Series 60 etc.) cannot display PP WebHelp in its current form because they cannot handle scrolling elements on the page. Users would see the help but they would not be able to scroll the contents or the topics. They would only see the visible part of the screen and nothing else.

These devices are identified automatically by code in the skins. By default, users visiting your site with one of these mobile devices will see a warning message explaining that their browser cannot display the page, and then they will be returned to the last page they were viewing. Alternatively, you can also redirect them to another web page. You can enter separate redirect addresses for Android devices and for other mobile devices.

Configuring the warning message

You can configure the warning message displayed for Android and other mobile devices with the configuration variables stored in the skin.

Redirecting Android and other mobile device users to a different web page

You can enter separate URLs to redirect both users of Android devices and other mobile devices (Blackberry, Windows CE, Symbian, Series 60 etc.) to different pages in the configuration variables stored in the skin. If you leave these variables empty users will see the warning message. If you enter an URL users visiting the site with these devices will be redirected.

In iOS 4 there is a bug that prevents the history buttons from working correctly when navigating in WebHelp pages that use frames like those generated by Help & Manual. This bug has been corrected in iOS 5 and the history Previous and Next buttons now work correctly for iPhone and iPad devices that have updated their devices. The Premium Pack skins disable the history buttons automatically for users who are still on iOS 4.