More mobile. Rambler-Mail for smartphones

In the spring, launching a new Rambler-Mail , we began to develop optimized versions for various mobile devices. First, we updated the version for very simple push-button phones. The second step was to optimize Mail for smartphones and tablets (https://mail-pda.rambler.ru/).


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Five minutes of PR: What have we improved?

- The speed of the Mail has increased.
- Mail optimized for work with touch-screens of smartphones.
- Now you can work with files attached to letters.

And now - about the internal kitchen.

The main tasks that we faced were to take into account the needs of the widest possible audience and provide easy access to the Mail from any device. At the same time, the mobile version should work quickly and comply with the visual standards of the web version of Mail and the mobile device at the same time.

The main problem that we have predictably encountered is support for the whole variety of devices and browsers. The second problem is the speed of the version in these conditions.

iOS turned out to be the most predictable of all platforms: in fact, this is one web engine with multiple shells, which greatly simplifies debugging. Although there are pitfalls. And if we found a bug (for example, the notorious cache of POST requests from iOS6.0 without forcing Cache-Control: no-cache in the header), then its solution worked simultaneously for all browsers.

In the same Android 3 main engine: WebKit, Gecko and Presto. In addition to a wide variety of OS versions, Android also surprises with the behavior of interface elements - the same controls may differ not only in appearance. For example, native controls work differently. But the most difficult moment, in our opinion, was scrolling - mobile browsers are slowly working with relative positioning. As a result, the usual table was the most undemanding to resources when scrolling.

Summing up the layout experience in this project, one can name three “not”:

- Do not use relative positioning;
- Do not use RGBA values;
- Do not use a non-native scroll (unfortunately, we didn’t realize this “not” immediately and go back to the system one yet).

Anyway, we have coped with the problems and will use this experience in further development. We hope that users will enjoy the new mobile mail, and we will be glad to offer development.