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merkur

Easily adapt web content to mobile devices

What it is?

How does it work?

Merkur works as an inverse proxy (user transparent), inserted between the request and the content generated by the server.

  1. The user makes a request with the device to visualize a website.
  2. The request goes through Merkur, and the system identifies the device and its capabilities (screen size, scripting support, etc.).
  3. The request arrives unchanged to the server, and it serves the requested Web.
  4. The response arrives to Merkur which based on device capabilities and developer configuration adapts the website.
  5. The device gets the adapted website.

What can I do?

  • It let's that an unique URL offers same information adapted to different devices. Merkur is designed to achieve One Web concept.
  • It adapts images:
    • size, limiting them to the device screen wide reducing data sent to the device so, reducing download times also.
    • format, changing those image formats not supported by the device to the one indicated as favorite for the device.
  • Merkur comes with a customizable content adjustment system (customizable transcoding) that let's easily:
    • Removal of elements which are superfluous for a mobile user.
    • Addition of new elements, sustitution of images by their alternative description texts and even inserting telephonic links (which allow call activation from the device).
    • Elements reubication within the page.
    • Table linearization following different strategies.
    • Style sheet personalization and embedding removing also those which are non-suitable for mobile devices.
    • Markup language translation from generic profiles to those adecuate for mobile devices (XHTML Basic or XHTMLMobile Profile).
    • etc.
  • Merkur can be easily extended.

What do I need?

  • Merkur must be installed in a server with Java Virtual Machine (JVM) 1.5 or higher version.
  • Merkur is a multiplatform software, and it has been successfully tested on Linux, Microsoft WindowsTM and MacOS XTM servers.
  • Merkur supports the W3C Simple API for Device Description, so any repository that implements this API can be plugged to it.
  • The server where Merkur is installed must have access to the content that want to be mobilized (it is not needed to be on the same server).