Mobile development is fast becoming an essential skill for ASP.NET developers. In the modern world, visiting a slow, cumbersome desktop site on a mobile device just doesn’t cut it. Users expect to see a layout designed for a small screen along with stripped down, prioritized content that suits their needs on the go. ASP.NET MVC is an ideal platform for this, allowing you to serve different views to different users without rewriting your content, and without building a separate native app for each target device.

In Part I of Mobile ASP.NET MVC 4, learn to develop fluid content that adapts its layout on the client device, using HTML, JavaScript and CSS and responsive web techniques. In Part II, meet the server-side techniques that allow you to show different content to different devices and make the most of their different strengths and capabilities. Then Part III presents a wide range of techniques, tips and guidelines on dealing with some of the challenges of mobile web development, such as browser incompatibilities, varying device performance, and targeting older devices.

By the end of Mobile ASP.NET MVC 4, you should feel confident building web apps that successfully target anything from an iOS or Android device to a feature phone or an older mobile browser. Along the way, you'll learn about the modern mobile web landscape and how to choose the approaches that are right for you, depending on your target audience.

What you’ll learn

• Use responsive principles to build apps that display and perform well on a range of mobile devices.
• Leverage your server-side code to customize what you serve to the client, depending on its capabilities.
• Build an ASP.NET MVC custom view engine, use display modes effectively, and create reusable mobile components with custom HTML helpers.
• Make the most of new capabilities offered on some devices by interacting with native APIs.
• Learn tips and tricks for dealing with browser incompatibilities and targeting older devices.
• Benefit from the author's experience as he guides you through a full range of modern mobile web strategy.

Who this book is for

This book is for the ASP.NET developer who knows how ASP.NET MVC works and is eager to learn how to use it for building mobile websites. Thorough knowledge of ASP.NET MVC is not at all required but some is assumed. This book also assumes a little knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. You do not need any prior experience in mobile development.