Nintendo DSi Browser

The Nintendo DSi Browser is a free application downloadable from the Nintendo DSi Shop. It is capable of browsing the internet, but only with some plugins, including Javascript. Adobe Flash is not compatible with the application. Though Flash is not supported, sites such as DSiCade and DSiPaint have took advantage of the Javascript functionality and created games and applications, similar to ones created for Adobe Flash.

Changelog

29/30 July 2009 version (507)

Reducing the size by 3 blocks

First version (483)

First release

Features/Limitations

Feature	Supported
Audio	No
Canvas	Limited
CSS2	Yes
CSS3	Partial (test here)
DOM	Yes
DOM2	Yes
Javascript	Yes
File Download	No
File Upload	No
Flash	No
HTML5	Partial
Plugins	No
SVG	No
Video	No
XHTML	Yes
XMLHttpRequest	Yes

User Agent strings

Sample DSi Browser User Agent Strings :

Opera/9.50 (Nintendo DSi; Opera/483; U; en-US)
Opera/9.50 (Nintendo DSi; Opera/483; U; en-GB)
Opera/9.50 (Nintendo DSi; Opera/507; U; en-US)
Opera/9.50 (Nintendo DSi; Opera/507; U; en-GB)

Tips

Vertical mode

To active the vertical mode automatically, add one of the following tags between <head></head> :

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" />
<meta name="viewport" content="width=240" />

Using device-width will adapt the page to the width of other mobile devices.

You can test this mode with the following demo page: here (link dead as of 06/2010)

Detect User Agent

To detect if the user agent is Nintendo DSi Browser :

<script type="text/javascript">
     window.onload=function() 
     {
         if (navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Nintendo DSi') == -1) //If the UserAgent is not "Nintendo DSi"
         {
               location.replace('http://www.dsibrew.org'); //Redirect to an other page
         }
     }
</script>

Key Codes

Code	Button
13	A
37	Left
38	Up
39	Right
40	Down

Notes :

Only A, Up, and Down normally emit codes
Left and Right can be read only if L or R are held
Holding L or R disables the A button

Screen Resolution

The DSi screen resolution is 256x192. However, the viewable area in the browser is only 240x176. Both screens provide the same viewable area.

In vertical mode, you can have a page span both screens. However, the browser will behave as if the bottom screen is the only active screen and the top screen is scrolled off. This is important when computing CSS coordinates. Items positioned from "bottom" will be positioned based on 176px and not the full 352px of both screens.

Using Both Screens

Here's how your webpage can span both screens:

Use the meta tag to set vertical mode
Ensure that your page takes up exactly 240x352 pixels.
Add the following JavaScript just before the </body> tag:

<script type="text/javascript">document.body.scrollTop = 176;</script>

Generally the easiest way to accomplish the correct layout is to create HTML elements that "contain" the top and bottom screens. Here's an example:

<html>
  <head>
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=240" />
    <style type="text/css">
      body { margin: 0px; }
      #topscreen, #bottomscreen { width: 240px; height: 176px; overflow: hidden; }
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>
    <div id="topscreen">Top Screen</div>
    <div id="bottomscreen">Bottom Screen</div>
  </body>
</html>

This scheme allows the page to be easily manipulated through JavaScript.