Web Development for the Mobile

A new project drops heavily on my lap the past few days: develop a system that interfaces with a mobile browser primarily to support the online education project of the college.

The college has been using Moodle (http://moodle.com) as its Learning Management System (LMS) and the closest link towards the project is Mobile Moodle (MOMO http://mobilemoodle.org/).

I read through the product and it requires me to have a mobile device with web browser and preferrably with a WiFi connection. At the back of my mind, if I am to build with a web browser, there's not much options to choose from away from what I am currently doing -- web application with PHP, MySQL and JS (jQuery preferrably).

With more searches, clicks and reading, I have come accross to:

• Sencha (http://sencha.com) - a Mobile Javascript built from ExtJS background.
• WebKit Open Source Project (http://webkit.org) - web browser engine.
• FMA SDK (http://fma.sourceforge.net) - had used it to interface between mobile and other appliances.
• PhoneGap (http://phonegap.com) - open source mobile platform that supports 6 platforms. 
• jQTouch (http://jqtouch.com) - "A jQuery plugin for mobile web development on iPhone, iPod Touch, and other forward-thinking devices". This can use the WebKit for a preview and development.
• dotMobi (http://mtld.mobi) - This offers training for design, development and background information about mobile development.
• Nokia SDKs (http://forum.nokia.com) - flowing through with the dotMobi leads and just about to start dwelling into learning each one of those mentioned in its training articles and archives.

Then suddenly, I just felt the urge to go ahead and start to code. I decided to make a new module - new set of libraries, objects, structure and coding standards. But in order to do that, it's nice to get acquianted with MVC platforms for a change. I crossed with Kohana (http://kohanaphp.com) -- a PHP5 MVC framework from CodeIgniter background.

I then went through a little tutorial on how to use Kohana and it seems promising. Tried a few samples but then I stopped. Starting a new one with this platform would mean I have to forget about how I got through all the codes I've used in the same project I am working with.

After a few minutes of big sighs and a mug of coffee, my click landed on jQMobile (http://jqmobile.com) - jQuery's own(as in from the creator of jQuery) mobile platform. It is on its Alpha 2 release and sounds very promising:

• least adjustment in coding structure
• gets me more intimate with jQuery
• gets me more intimate with MVC framework
• lets me grow with it

Well, a new tool for keeping me to speed, a big step in keeping me ahead.

Wish me luck!