The Wii Browser has arrived!
I just downloaded the Wii browser and I can say that I am content with it. A few things should be solved but it's okay. Now it's about time for a small technical review, from someone who has been using Opera for 6 years.
The browser itself is good. The lack of History or at least a URL cache is the only downside I can see, but I think I can live without them. The popups open in the same window and that might be quite annoying too.
The Opera based browser reports as Opera/9.00 (Nintendo Wii; U; ;1309-9; en) and returns the following headers (similar to the desktop version):
HTTP_CONNECTION:Keep-Alive HTTP_ACCEPT:text/html, application/xml;q=0.9, application/xhtml+xml, image/png, image/jpeg, image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, */*;q=0.1 HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET:iso-8859-1, utf-8, utf-16, *;q=0.1 HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING:deflate, gzip, x-gzip, identity, *;q=0 HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE:en
The browser's native resolution appears to be 800×500 (SuperVGA minus 100 pixels for the menu bar) at 4:3 and 1024×500 at 16:9 but there is also the "Opera for handheld" mode if you hit 2 (similar to the F11 functionality in the desktop version) which strangely doesn't report itself as "handheld" unlike the desktop version; maybe the Opera developers could shed some light into this and tell us how to handle this nice feature? Anyway, you can also zoom (×2) a page if you think the fonts are too small to read. Yet again, if you own a small television that might still be not enough.
Standards support seems fine, though I noticed some weird behaviour in some cases, the top menu of this site for example, which the desktop version of Opera displays without problems. The trial version does cannot display Java appelts (though it does understand them) but it does display Flash 7 compatible apps. Apparently YouTube works fine (without video rewinding as reported here a while ago). At this point I should also say that my Wii whited out when I tried rewinding and I had to unplug the power cable to reset it… Flash's transparency doesn't seem to work either. Some formats like .mpg are obviously not supported since they require a plugin (and it seems unlikely that such plugins will ever be available) and the Wii browser will just display them as bytes (and not as "scary japanese"). Javascript support is also excellent, everything runs smoothly and it has no problems at all with libraries such as jQuery (even Thickbox works; you can't exit it, but that should be fairly easy to fix).
What's more exciting though is that it is possible to use the Wiimote's keys in Javascript or Flash games! Here follows a key -> unicode table of the Wii Remote's keys. Have in mind that some of those keys are reserved though.
↑ 175 ↓ 176 → 177 ← 178 A 13 B 171 - 170 + 174 1 172 2 173
02:11:Apparently the content filters that were supposed to be included in the browser are either not working yet or missing; viewing nasty sites is still allowed… for now.
02:26:And an explanation for the black border which some people hate: non-flat screens apparently cut off the corners and a little bit of the sides as I noticed in the Photo Channel, you wouldn't want that when viewing a site, would you?
12/29: It may not be possible to use those keys in Flash games after all; bugger. Sorry for any false hopes :(
audiotheory @ 28/12/2006 at 04:48:07 pm
Remote buttons do *NOT* register as key presses in Flash, I've tried both events and polling every frame. Also transparencies work fine!
Arty2 @ 28/12/2006 at 11:49:39 pm
Unfortunately I don't have internet access for my Wii at the moment co I can't use either the getCode() or the getAscii() methods to check if the buttons do report themselves in Flash; I assumed they would since JavaScript can detect them.
If they don't, then obviously Opera's developers did some serious job trying to prevent people from playing games. Unless the D-Pad is only enabled when the B button is pressed, which means focus is taken away from the object anyway.
As for the transparencies I admit I should be more specific: the wmode method doesn't seem to work.
mama @ 28/12/2006 at 11:59:13 pm
Hi Arty2,
getCode doesn't seem to work and the detection of "A" button is very bad. It's seem that it can only make a click by second, and sometimes "A" button doesn't work at all.
>If they don't, then obviously Opera's developers did some serious job trying to prevent people from playing games.
I think you're right :(
Zac @ 29/12/2006 at 11:11:14 am
Well, that was a waste of time, Im currently aiming to develop flash games for the wii and i was hoping that this would work, So You guys are telling me THAT only the A Button is used for flash games? AND THEY DEVELOPED www.wiicade.com to have GAMES that USE the wii remote!!!! HoW STUPID!!
mama @ 29/12/2006 at 11:53:51 am
A lot of games on Wiicade don't work well on the Wii. Flash games need to be optimized or developed for the Wii, like a lot of flash games on devices, not just put like they are on the web.
And it isn't impossible to create funny games without any buttons.
ddx @ 30/12/2006 at 12:58:24 am
keys work fine in javascript, too bad they dont work in flash :(
Jesse @ 15/01/2007 at 11:44:15 am
#2 is 173
Arty2 @ 15/01/2007 at 02:35:43 pm
Oops, that was what the edit was supposed to fix ^^;;
bubbleman4 @ 13/04/2007 at 10:04:30 pm
Well, can't you just test for keypresses in JavaScript and then send it through to Flash? I've done JavaScript to Flash communication before, so I'll give it a shot rather than using a whole new game engine API like they did on WiiCade.com.
Bool @ 28/12/2006 at 04:40:56 pm
It's posible to make use of those keys in flash???, I tried with javascript and flash, but flash didn't return anything. Also, it is imposible to stablish communication between javascript and flash, I haven't tried about flash sockets, I hope they aren't blocked.