Making Wii-friendly pages

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By tarquinwj Wednesday, 30. May 2007, 11:04:34

The Internet Channel on Wii is a Web browser using the Opera 9 display engine. It will display most Web pages without any changes. However, following a few tips will avoid some problems, and let you take advantage of the special Wii features.

( Read the article )

By tarquinwj Wednesday, 30. May 2007, 11:09:43

FYI, some games have developed a hack to get around the Flash event detection limitation; It is possible to pass limited information to the plug-in by strategically resizing the plug-in, and have it detect the resize, and work out from the way it was resized what button was pressed.

More details here:

http://www.quasimondo.com/archives/000638.php

By bloid Friday, 1. June 2007, 06:52:20

Is there any way currently of emulating the Wii browser?

I have a javascript heavy site which fails (and sections of it vanish) randomly when the user interacts with it. It works on Opera 9, but fails on the wii and there is no real way of debugging it :-(

By jax Friday, 1. June 2007, 08:00:28

Originally posted by bloid:

Is there any way currently of emulating the Wii browser?

Not fully, no. In general Opera 9 for desktop is a good approximation for the Wii, but Wii is a little more advanced in some regards (it's got newer SVG code for instance) and more constrained in some other (as described in the article). Desktop Opera has no simulation of the TV medium either, so wouldn't be too useful to test that.

It's even harder to debug based on a general description, but my first guess is memory issues. A desktop PC has a massive amount of memory, and while Wii is pretty well-endowed for a device it can't match that. Debugging memory issues is trickier than JavaScript bugs, but if you remove elements that use memory but don't have functional use, heavy images for instance, and the site then behaves better, you got a very likely candidate for the problems.

By bloid Friday, 1. June 2007, 08:09:59

Originally posted by jax:

if you remove elements that use memory but don't have functional use, heavy images for instance, and the site then behaves better, you got a very likely candidate for the problems.

Ahhh, this is probably it then... My site is using the google maps API with a completely redrawn tileset (and 3 layers of tiles), so it's probably the volume of data that is causing it to choke...

Shame...

Do you know if a Wii-constrained version of Opera 9 is in the works? I know I for one would find it really useful

Cheers!

[edit] Actually I guess a generic way to specify memory, processor speed, screen size, connection speed, etc and embed Opera inside that would be quite cool... With Opera working on more and more devices, a testbed that allows you to choose the emulated device would be really handy

Hahaha, And I realise this would be a massive undertaking that I am oversimplifying into a compact sentence

Anyway...enough rambling... Thanks for the help!

Post edited Friday, 1. June 2007, 08:25:40

By PetBom Friday, 1. June 2007, 14:47:06

Great article! It sure straightend out a couple of question marks for me, especially with regards to how screen resolution is actually handeled, the omission of the js Audio object and font support.

But I would really like some more info on the SVG support. David Storey hinted in a blog entry that the Wii Opera browser actually uses the Kestrel code base (As opposed to Merlin in 9.2) for svg rendering, and that this would allow using svg's in <img> tags and using svg's as backgrounds etc. I've done some testing on the Wii but the results are pretty inconclusive.

Is there a chance of more detailed specs. anytime soon regarding this or will we have to wait until Kestrel is out for the PC?

Also, what was the main reason for leaving javascript Audio object support out?

Ok. Thanks again for the article. Really helpful!

Cheers!

//Peter B

By jax Sunday, 3. June 2007, 06:42:41

Originally posted by PetBom:

But I would really like some more info on the SVG support.

David's list is just about covering it. As a "headline" feature, SVG in new contexts ('img' and in style sheets) would probably be the one. There is a large number of bug fixes, so people that have made SVG tests, or are bitten by those bugs, should be more happy about Opera for Wii than for desktop. There are also a few speed improvements. SVG 1.2 vector-effect and SVG 1.2 handler are added. (SVG 1.2 navigation, tabbed navigation and spatial navigation, is not applicable for the Wii. Thus offtopic to this discussion, but I am a little concerned about the accessibility of the "self" attribute value as it doesn't seem overridable for the users that depend on it.)

I am not directly involved with the Wii browser so I can't say for sure, but the list of non-supported features are all "experimental" or extra, like all the WHATWG stuff including Audio. Egotistically I'd love Web Forms 2 support in the Wii, but I could well understand why it isn't there. Wii users at large may not benefit from it, and then it shouldn't be included. Audio is also quite new and rapidly changing. That said I agree that browsing would benefit from audio support.

By tarquinwj Sunday, 3. June 2007, 22:30:27

Originally posted by jax:

Egotistically I'd love Web Forms 2 support in the Wii

*cough* It's there

By moder Thursday, 7. June 2007, 19:34:53

As tarquinwj mentioned above, the buttons can be used in Flash using a JavaScript workaround. WiiCade.com has this implemented in a number of Flash Games.

Multiuser support would be much appreciated by the Flash game development community. It could be implemented by allowing each additional Wiimote to trigger different key codes. Multiuser mouse support could also be added via additional objects in JavaScript. Thus if a site was designed to support the feature, it could take advantage of it, but it would not affect the experience of non-optimized sites. This could support UI's much like the multitouch interfaces where users could use two wiimotes to grab corners of picture to expand and rotate them. It would also be great for games, and using JavaScript would provide a workaround for the limitations of Flash in supporting a single mouse.

Does Opera plan to update the browser as new plugins become more common on the web? If not, it will become gradually less useful.

-Mike

By tarquinwj Thursday, 7. June 2007, 21:50:00

Originally posted by moder:

Multiuser support would be much appreciated

I agree. Let's see what happens

But note this is probably not the place to ask, since it is a discussion of what is available right now, not about wishlists.

Originally posted by moder:

Does Opera plan to update the browser as new plugins become more common on the web?

I cannot comment on future plans as such, since I do not know. However, what plugins can be used very much depends on what plugins are available for the platform, and/or are installed on it. Opera itself can work with any normal plugins that use the available architecture, as long as they are installed. The current plugin is Flash 7 (I think this has to do with what Flash versions have the SDK available to be used this way), but when it comes to plugins, it is not really in Opera's control to install them, since they are external applications provided by external companies. I assume that what plugins are made available would be down to Nintendo's arrangements with those companies.

What it has got, of course, is SVG/SVGDOM and Canvas (and good old DHTML), so you can make games in JavaScript that do not need Flash at all, and could be made to run very efficiently without needing to load an extra plugin.

By d.insley Monday, 11. June 2007, 03:42:15

Is there _any_ way to disable the blue border that now surrounds links when hovering over them?

By tarquinwj Monday, 11. June 2007, 08:52:03

Originally posted by d.insley:

Is there _any_ way to disable the blue border that now surrounds links when hovering over them?

Personally, I would not recommend trying to do that. The user needs a very obvious highlight to make sure they are aware that it is a link, due to the way the page is displayed on Wii (where, unlike with a normal desktop browser, the cursor does not change to indicate links).

Removing that highlight would make it much harder for them to use your page, unless you yourself had an even more obvious highlight. But even if you did, it will still be confusing, since they will be used to seeing the blue highlight on other pages, then for some reason they do not understand, yours would not have one. They may even assume that your site has no links.

For now, the highlight is done with the outline style, but this may well change in future releases. So even if you remove it now, it may still appear later, or appear differently in a way that you cannot control.

By palojur Monday, 11. June 2007, 20:51:27

I would like to use Opera for Wii whith Slovak or Czech language. Will it be possible?

By tarquinwj Tuesday, 12. June 2007, 07:59:11

Originally posted by palojur:

I would like to use Opera for Wii with Slovak or Czech language. Will it be possible?

Currently the Wii fonts and onscreen keyboard do not support many of the accented characters used by these languages (čďĺľňŕťěřů), so it is not normally possible to make Web pages in the Slovak or Czech languages that can be displayed completely by Opera on Wii.

If you mean that you want the Opera interface to be in the Slovak or Czech languages, this article discussion only covers how to make Web pages for Opera on Wii. I do not have information here about future plans. Please ask over in the Opera for Wii forums:
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/forum.dml?id=2081

By jax Tuesday, 12. June 2007, 11:39:28

Having a Wii in the Czech Republic, I'll second that. This is rather annoying and makes Czech (and Slovak) text hard to read and you can't write "proper" Czech. From a web designer point of view it doesn't make much of a difference in a sense. When there is no font support for these characters you can't make them display properly, and if (as I hope) the fonts will include them in the future then it will suddenly work.

There is one point worth mentioning, and that is searching. Many or most search engines for Czech (and Slovak) text allow "ASCII-fied" words, like "Ceska" matching "Česká". The Wii is one device where that is particularly helpful, but it is also the case on many phones, or other keyboards not including these characters.

By Profesjonalna Saturday, 23. June 2007, 14:45:11

thanks for really great article!

By sambront Sunday, 8. July 2007, 15:34:44

This article/discussion is very helpful, since I've been running into an issue with the browser freezing. I am trying to make a page where people can navigate through a couple hundred photos on a page, and it constantly freezes after 6-7 (they are 150KB each).

Is there a way to clear the cache on the Wii browser? I'm trying to figure out a way to make this work.

By jax Monday, 9. July 2007, 13:57:21

Couple hundred photos at 150 KB each (I assume JPEGs) on a page sounds pretty memory intense. Are these thumbnails? If so you should really make true thumbnails instead of just scaling down the original photos. This will give much better performance not only on Wii, but also on PCs, and you will save a lot of bandwidth. Unless you are on a good broadband line 15 MB takes a long time to download (and if the pages are popular the server will be feeling the hurt). With WiFi that will take several minutes (how many depends on the quality of the link).

If the photos are not thumbnails, only one photo of this size will display on the screen at a time, and having a hundred such photos will again be wasteful. Scrolling is good, but to a point.

By sambront Tuesday, 10. July 2007, 01:32:33

No, it's more like this:

www.channingjohnson.com

Originally posted by jax:

Couple hundred photos at 150 KB each (I assume JPEGs) on a page sounds pretty memory intense. Are these thumbnails? If so you should really make true thumbnails instead of just scaling down the original photos. This will give much better performance not only on Wii, but also on PCs, and you will save a lot of bandwidth. Unless you are on a good broadband line 15 MB takes a long time to download (and if the pages are popular the server will be feeling the hurt). With WiFi that will take several minutes (how many depends on the quality of the link).

If the photos are not thumbnails, only one photo of this size will display on the screen at a time, and having a hundred such photos will again be wasteful. Scrolling is good, but to a point.

By jax Tuesday, 10. July 2007, 14:12:37

That should work. I'm parted from my Wii at the moment so I can't tell if it isn't, but I can try to get someone to check.

By sambront Tuesday, 10. July 2007, 15:31:26

When viewing that page on my Wii, it only goes to picture 6 or 7 of 16. After that, the browser freezes. Refreshing the page fixes things, but I can still only get 6 or 7 pictures in.

Originally posted by jax:

That should work. I'm parted from my Wii at the moment so I can't tell if it isn't, but I can try to get someone to check.

By p01 Thursday, 19. July 2007, 12:07:16

sambront: The images have to be decompressed to 24-32bits per pixel. Therefore it takes a lot more memory ( which the Wii is lacking ) than the file size suggests. In the context of a web site, a 150Kb JPG is already massive. If this is a gallery/portfolio, you should definitely have a list of thumbnails.

By d.insley Thursday, 19. July 2007, 21:19:29

Is there any plans to fix position: fixed to work better? It seems to redraw the elements rather slowly when scrolling. (it plays 'catch-up' while scrolling up and down if elements are position: fixed)

By tarquinwj Wednesday, 1. August 2007, 09:36:34

For those who are not aware yet, the second half of this article mini-series has been published:
http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/the-wii-remote-api/

Originally posted by d.insley:

Is there any plans to fix position: fixed to work better?

For now, at least, that is unavoidable because of the way scrolling is done to keep it responsive given the speed of the Wii.

By bsides Tuesday, 21. August 2007, 14:39:09

Originally posted by tarquinwj:

The Internet Channel on Wii is a Web browser using the Opera 9 display engine. It will display most Web pages without any changes. However, following a few tips will avoid some problems, and let you take advantage of the special Wii features.

( Read the article )

Nice, now could you please fix this "Access Denied" thing? It's really annoying and is really freaking me out.

By dangerbyca Thursday, 27. September 2007, 15:07:38

Originally posted by sambront:

When viewing that page on my Wii, it only goes to picture 6 or 7 of 16. After that, the browser freezes. Refreshing the page fixes things, but I can still only get 6 or 7 pictures in.

Originally posted by jax:
That should work. I'm parted from my Wii at the moment so I can't tell if it isn't, but I can try to get someone to check.

We had the same problem when building a JS slideshow after 10-12 pictures it would lock up. We put this in the Doc Head;

<meta http-equiv="Expires" content="Tue, 01 Jan 2000 12:12:12 GMT"><meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache">

It works perfectly now.

By redpill303 Sunday, 7. October 2007, 23:30:49

Why is Access Denied to this article for me??

By redpill303 Monday, 8. October 2007, 22:38:56

Dang...i have been looking to make some sites for access through my Wii and figured what better place to look for clue than the console's built in browser's own site...hehehe...not to worry...i'm sure some sort of arrangement will be made and then there will be plenty of info available. Thanks for your reply.

Peace

By trashhalo Wednesday, 10. October 2007, 12:43:25

How frustrating! So you currenly do not have the right to publish articles about the software you develop through the contract with Nintendo? I am not frustrated at Opera but Nintendo. Nintendo has a history of treating third party developers poorly. I was hoping they had learned from their mistakes but I guess not.

Post edited Wednesday, 10. October 2007, 13:53:18

By TyrannicalFascist Monday, 22. October 2007, 13:22:53

Since Access is Denied, is there any other site that gives the specifications for making a Wii-Friendly page?

By ravennce Saturday, 17. November 2007, 12:41:54

I also would love to find more infos about the Wii-Version of Opera. If someone has a copy of this article it would be nice if you mail it to me. Thanks in advance.

By ari11210 Sunday, 6. January 2008, 23:52:47

Can anyone point me to some sample code I can use to play sound files in the Wii browser via javascript. I dont care if it is using flash, mp3, wav, etc, as long as it plays in the Wii browser. I would like to play various sound effects in an browser based game. Thanks for your help, Aaron

By optimisme Sunday, 20. April 2008, 12:15:50

Thanks "Access is Denied", this is the way to get new Opera users.

By Jangaron Monday, 9. June 2008, 13:27:40

Originally posted by ari11210:

Can anyone point me to some sample code I can use to play sound files in the Wii browser via javascript. I dont care if it is using flash, mp3, wav, etc, as long as it plays in the Wii browser. I would like to play various sound effects in an browser based game. Thanks for your help, Aaron

I have the same problem and did not find any solution yet. Aaron, did you get any reply? I'd really be grateful for any hint. In this topic, is was said that the Opera "Audio" object does not work, SoundManager 2 and JavaScript Sound Kit both rely on ExternalInterface, which is available since Flash 8 (but the Wii only has Flash 7), and the old SoundManager (http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager/) which requires Flash 6 also does not seem to work. :-(
I was also quite annoyed by the "Access denied", which is still the result I get when trying to read the original article. Maybe Nintendo does not want us freelancers to spoil their commercial game revenue by producing high-quality free games for the Wii, and they forced Opera to remove that page? Opera guys, if you really are interested in anyone programming for your browser, you should listen to your forums and re-enable this article! The main reason to make a game run in Opera is that it is likely to run on the Wii, then, so if it doesn't, I'd consider dropping Opera support (only 4% of my visitors use Opera)...

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Making Wii-friendly pages