What are the quirks in the Blackberry web browser that a developer should know about?

Question

Before I start pulling my hair out for any “known issues,” are there any quirks or problems that I should be aware of.

In particular, cookies, JavaScript, HTML, CSS and images.

PS I have a copy of the documents provided by RIM, but I hope others find out about some lesser known issues.

Answer 1

Here are some of them that I noticed:

• For some reason, the BB browser does not seem to handle underscores in the host name correctly. I don’t remember what happened, but if your hostname looks like this: http: // some_host / blah , I remember that he had problems.

  • This can be fixed with a DNS record that removes _

• Another thing we saw is serving .jad files to load Java. If your module contains _ or other special characters, the BB browser displays an HTTP 500 error when trying to get .jar or parse .jad. This is especially annoying because it is actually not an HTTP error, the server is serving the file, but the BB browser simply cannot parse it, so it blames the server.

  • We fixed this using Fiddler to click the .jad URL and view the contents of the HTTP response. If your .jad has any special characters (or sometimes URL / HTTP encoded strings), you may need to simplify your module name to use only A-Za-z0-9

I know that this is not exactly what html / css needs, but I thought I would post it anyway!

Answer 2

I used blackberry browsers in emulator versions to test my web pages . Here are some of them that I would like to mention.

Please forgive me for any deviations in the real case, because they relate to the versions of the emulator on Windows 7 . I have devices for verification and verification.

• When we switch to BB OS version lower than 5.X (for example, BB 9630), browsers that support java script will be disabled by default. Therefore, you need browsers to enable it manually.

• When we move on to BB OS 4.2, style sheet support will be disabled by default. Access your web pages without using a stylesheet. Thus, you will need both java script support and a stylesheet.

• Even when I was on OS version 7.X or 6.X, the Internet connection worked and I could connect to the pages. When I went down to version 5, these emulator browsers showed connectivity issues. In googling, I found that MDS is a requirement when we go down the versions and look for Internet access.

• I installed MDS, but it did not work for versions below 6, because the JAVA_HOME environment variable was not set in my advanced system settings in the properties of my computer. But this did not even indicate a problem, and MDS instantly closed. So after setting my JAVA_HOME to "C: \ Program Files (x86) \ Java \ jre1.6.0_07", where I installed the JDK (we need the JDK for MDS), the Internet connection started.

• In addition, if you use g zip compression for your pages below Blackberry OS version 6, browsers no longer request compressed. (found it on OS emulators version 5 BB 9700, BB 8520).

• Also, when you intend to use the css property or an html entity with which you doubt support, be sure to go to the appropriate developer manual for the contents of the OS version and find which version they provide full support and partial support from.

Answer 3

Check out the BlackBerry version 4.2 content developer guide . This is for an older browser 4.2, but there is still a lot of good information on what supports HTML, CSS and javascript.

Answer 4

My experience with the BB 8700 is that you should not use JavaScript, no matter how CSS is displayed correctly. It also does not have a default flash player, so you can just process the HTML form on the server side / ASP / CGI. Also be careful with size, as the Internet can be quite slow on the road.

Answer 5

One known issue is that the Blackberry browser completely ignores the css display property, so you cannot use the display: no to hide content.

We also had problems submitting the main form - sometimes POST does not happen at all, sometimes it happens, but some or all form fields go AWOL. We were not able to figure this out, but it seems that this happens mainly with the help of the BB Curve series.