Mobile Support

[richard]

Just a heads-up - I'm currently looking at adding mobile support to the forums and the rest of the site.

Note sure the timescale yet - might be this week, or it might be mid-April.

For the forums, this will probably be in the form of a new theme. It should then auto-detect your device and give the option to switch (auto-detection is never perfect and frankly sometimes boils down to personal preference).

For the main site, it will probably be in the form of a few basic settings that will make it easier to use. A fully 'responsive' site could be big job.

[richard]

I've been looking at this recently. The forums have a certain amount of mobile support, but it could have more.

Is anyone using (or has tried using) the forums on a mobile device such as a tablet or smart phone? How usable are you finding it?

It seems like fully mobile aware responsive templates are hard to come by - still looking...

[Rlangham]

I use it on my iPhone fairly regularly (most of my internet browsing is on there nowadays as I don't have time to crank up my laptop) and it views fine, basically the same as the desktop version but slightly squashed for easier viewing

[richard]

"Mobile support" constitutes a few things. There are the basics that are considered essential - things like using new tags to tell the browser the page size. The current style supports these.

Further issues currently being flagged by Google are usability based - eg. small fonts and touch buttons/etc which are too close together.

I've found two templates that look like they should work. I'll choose one and add it as an option for people to try.

[sawdust]

I've been looking at this recently. The forums have a certain amount of mobile support, but it could have more.

Is anyone using (or has tried using) the forums on a mobile device such as a tablet or smart phone? How usable are you finding it?

It seems like fully mobile aware responsive templates are hard to come by - still looking...

I frequently access the forum using an android phone with no problem. This post has been written using it.

Sawdust.

[richard]

I have a "more mobile" theme available if anyone would like to try it.

Go to your user Control Panel, and select the "Board Preferences" tab.
Select My Board Style to be "Subway".

If you wish to go back to the original, it is "prosilver".

There are still a few issues with Subway. The Bright Green needs changing (I've sent a support query on this - strangely it is missing in the various colour options!), and I think we need more contrast in the grey/ feint background side of things.

[sawdust]

I have a "more mobile" theme available if anyone would like to try it.

Go to your user Control Panel, and select the "Board Preferences" tab.
Select My Board Style to be "Subway".

If you wish to go back to the original, it is "prosilver".

There are still a few issues with Subway. The Bright Green needs changing (I've sent a support query on this - strangely it is missing in the various colour options!), and I think we need more contrast in the grey/ feint background side of things.

Is that a "per device" setting as I do also use my laptop?
The current setting works far better on mobile than earlier versions of the software did.

Sawdust.

[richard]

Per user. It is in your user settings.

"Subway" is meant to be fully responsive - so it will change how it looks according to your device, etc (more so than the current "prosilver"). It also has a very modern "flat" look, as it uses things like "Bootstrap" and "Font Awesome". I don't expect you to know what these are but they are fashionable at the moment. To be fair, they work well with the modern range of devices and browsers. And having created a site with Bootstrap in the past 12 months, it makes it a lot easier to get some nice functionality that works on lots of devices.

[sawdust]

Ok Richard, I'm trying subway for a bit. First impressions are that while it is a nice clear clean presentation of the forum, it doesn't show any actual content on the page without scrolling down first. This is not something I'd noticed with prosilver.

Sawdust.

[richard]

Is that on a cell phone? Content-wise it appears fine on a PC or Nexus 7 (7in tablet). I haven't actually tried the iPad yet.

Even if everyone really likes it, I need to fix the green, and the light grey "banner" (navigation location & search box) - before I make it the default for everyone. I have support requests on these issues.

[sawdust]

Is that on a cell phone? Content-wise it appears fine on a PC or Nexus 7 (7in tablet). I haven't actually tried the iPad yet.

Even if everyone really likes it, I need to fix the green, and the light grey "banner" (navigation location & search box) - before I make it the default for everyone. I have support requests on these issues.

Using Chrome on a Samsung S4. I don't actually see any Green anywhere on the page.
Edit: do see the green banners on the index pages.

Sawdust.

[sawdust]

Richard,

I've taken some screen shots, using both subway and prosilver so you see what I'm seeing.

https://plus.google.com/113863952328572 ... y9MFDVx2uo

I hope this helps.

Sawdust.

[richard]

Thanks Sawdust.

Yes there's the green on those forum banners. Also the menu in the top right. However I see it has folded the top right menu in to that one square with horizontal lines - clicking that should open it up.

Also you can probably see what I mean about the Home/Forum and search box being a bit faint.

[sawdust]

Do you see what I mean about having to scroll down to see content?

Sawdust.

[richard]

I do now

I think there's a trade off here between large fonts & bigger buttons vs. fitting more on the page.
The template alleviates some of this by doing things like using that horizontal line button to remove most of the top button menu, but there is still a bit of a trade-off!

Is there anyone who has tried using the "prosilver" (ie. default) template in the past few months on a smart phone, and decided it is too difficult? (a few people including yourself have essentially said "works fine")

Google does flag it as having a font that is too small and clickable items are too close, and I would have thought with our membership skewing to the older generations, we might have more of these kind of problems?