Chrome Device Mode and Mobile Emulation

Recently a colleague suggested I take a fresh look at the mobile emulation button in Chrome's developer tools.

Apparently this was upgraded earlier in the year and it's a shame I didn't have this a year ago!

Chrome Developer Tools Mobile Emulation

Some immediate advantages I see for APEX development:

• Specify the device you'd like to emulate from a decent range of contemporary devices
• This viewport can then be easily scaled to suit whatever monitor you're using
• Apply network throtttling to simulate access on a mobile network
• Use the emulation tab to define a media type to render as - I've been using 'print' to test how certain pages look when printed
• The cursor changes, indicating the behaviour will emulate finger touches on a touchscreen
• touch & drag emulated perfectly - I removed touchpunch from my page and sliders stopped working as expected without jQuery mobile
• scrolling drifts instead of static desktop movement (happy to improve terminology here)

Full details on how to use these features are available here: developer.chrome.com

Tomomi also has a great write up on the topic.

Nice work Chrome, nice work.

ODTUG from afar

I would like to extend my apologies to those people who persevered just now with our attempt to bring to you my presentation on APEX 5 Page Designer thanks to ODTUG.

Due to the massive time zone differences, the appropriate time on my end (6am) means I connect from home - where I'm limited to an ADSL connection. My location is even a bit of a dead zone for my smartphone's 4G plan which is normally better than my home internet speed. I considered just tethering the laptop to my phone, but I don't think it would have been an improvement.

After testing the audio last month it seemed things would be fine as long as I didn't use Prezi (not powerpoint), which hogged the connection with the visuals updating - but obviously the gremlins had other ideas today.

Blame him or Tony Abbott

Melissa from ODTUG has suggested we try record it another time so you don't miss out. In the meantime you can view the slides yourself here, you just don't get to enjoy my Australian accent attempting a few jokes - particularly at the start.

Next year I plan on attending Kscope in Florida, where I've submitted a few abstracts. I think we'll hear who's been accepted next month - but I look forward to meeting so many people I've collaborated with online in some form.

Stay tuned!