On Nov 2, 10:47*pm, Tom Anderson wrote:

On Tue, 2 Nov 2010, Roland Perry wrote:

In message i, at 21:39:35
on Mon, 1 Nov 2010, Tom Anderson remarked:

Seriously, though, have a go:

http://wap.tfl.gov.uk/planner

It's designed for tiny screens. I used to use it on my Sony Ericsson
T68i, which had a 101x80 screen. Even if you haven't got a data plan,
it generates so little traffic that it won't cost you much.

I gave it a try earlier today. The thing which defeated me was finding a
key to press with the "enter" or "send" function. So having got to the
right enquiry page, and typed in a station name, I was stranded with no
obvious way forward. (I'm sure it's obvious to others... please tell
me!)

I tentatively guess that you have a couple of so-called 'soft keys'
underneath the screen, somewhere near your call and hang up buttons. Each
of those will correspond to some kind of action on the page; this should
be displayed on the screen. What kind of phone do you have?

Yes, this is a phone browser interface function as opposed to a wap
page design function, for want of a more precise way of describing it.
On my uber-basic Nokia the magic key in question is the big one in the
centre of the directional navigation keypad - when the text entry
field is the focus of the screen it says 'Edit', when in text entry
mode it says 'OK' (for when one is finished), and when the focus of
the screen is a link it says 'Select'.


Examination of my online bill shows that this lack of completed enquiry cost
me 30p.

Yeah, that's not ideal value.

Not ideal, no - one can improve it somewhat by turning off images in
the phone's browser, so less data gets sent and charged for, plus it
can speed things up a little (the TfL wapsite isn't heavy on images,
but every little counts - the NR wapsite however is free of images in
the first place).

Also, an obvious point perhaps but don't use the preset option on the
browser which directs one to the pre-installed home page (of the
network or phone manufacturer or whatever - though it's likely this
reconfigurable anyway), instead go straight to the TfL (or NR) wapsite
by entering the address first before connecting, or better set and
then use a bookmark - I've got bookmarks for a number of LDBs for NR
stations I use, for example.

If you do succeed, I suspect you'll find the wap version of the TfL
journey planner a little wanting - well, I do at least! It's doesn't
offer any options such as a way of selecting certain modes only (e.g.
bus only), or being able to to choose the time you want to travel - it
just assumes you want to travel now, and then in the results screen it
offers a '30 minute later' jump.

The timetables section (accessed on the TfL front page) can be useful
- again it assumes one is travelling immediately, but I've found can
be a good way of checking late (or night) bus times when one is
already out, also I think the same applies for getting some idea of
when the last Tube trains run (though see above w.r.t. the wap journey
planner's lack of options - it'd be good to be able to query these
directly, ditto first Tube trains).

Just to converge on another recent thread, whilst useful it can't
quite can't compare to calling up the TfL Travel Info line and
speaking to someone who's well versed in matters metro-
transportational (I only made use of it occasionally but each time
they provided very helpful advice, and I know many others who rate
them highly). Of course, I won't be doing this any more now that it'll
cost and arm and a leg from a mobile, which is a shame.