[OpenLayers-Dev] Touch Navigation on non-iOS/Android

[christopher.schmidt at nokia.com]

Hi,

As part of my investigations of the past two days, I have found that 
other than iOS and Android platforms, there are no mobile browsers 
that implement multitouch on the mobile devices we have available to
us.

Specifically, I have tested: 
  * Opera Mobile on E7
  * Symbian Webkit on E7
  * Built-in Maemo browser on N900
  * Firefox 4 Beta on N900
  * Current IE on WP7 (which I think is an IE7/IE8 hybrid)

We do not currently have a Blackberry device available for testing,
so I have not tested on that platform, but based on web research,
I see no evidence that this platform supports touch events either.

In order to accommodate map browsing on these browsers, it is my
intent to add to the Navigation control functionality that allows
users of mobile browsers which do not support touch to 'tap' the map
to center the map. This functionality is implemented in several 
map applications on devices with poor touch support, and although
it is less satisfying than dragging to pan, it is my hope that this
allows us to have some limited support while improved browser
support for these events become available.

According to:

  http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-ww-monthly-201001-201101

Opera has approximately 20% marketshare, Nokia 15%, and Blackberry 
15%, in the mobile browser space. Adding this support should allow us
some limited functionality in this 50% of the browsers. 

If users have Blackberry devices available and are interested in 
helping to test this functionality, please join us on IRC tomorrow;
as soon as I get a sandbox together that implements the functionality,
I'll report it to this list and to the IRC channel and ask for 
testing from any interested parties.

Thanks,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
Nokia