Mobile skin

Mercifull · **Posted:** November 1st, 2010, 6:41 am

Have you ever considered a mobile skin for the website or the forums for people that use iPhones/Android/Blackberries etc?

Adbot · **Posted:** November 1st, 2010, 6:41 am

Mike · **Posted:** November 1st, 2010, 8:41 am

Thanks for the suggestion. We've considered it before, but Shane and I just don't have the time to do that when there are other things we are working on for the site that will have greater benefits. The amount of people who visit our site on mobile browsers accounts for about 1% of views.

I don't have a smartphone to see what the site looks like on one, but I know there are some users who commonly browse the site on their phone.

Is there anything in particular that doesn't work very well on your phone? We could certainly look into fixing small things.

Bryan · **Posted:** November 1st, 2010, 5:33 pm

This forum is phpBB, why not use Tapatalk?
It's an Android, iOS app, free to read through topics, free for admins to enable for the forums as a plugin, unfortunately on the Market (don't know about the App Store) it is paid to get the version that lets you post.

http://www.tapatalk.com/

And I got the Android and WP7 SDK recently to take screenshots (no native screenshot tool, ***), and this is my first screenshot!
Whoo! Milestone!!

Not that bad, body text wraps, just the other stuff you have to pan around for. Ads work fine HERE though, looks like SOMEONE still has to consider my request for mobile adsense, ISN'T THAT RIGHT MIKE?

Earth · **Posted:** November 1st, 2010, 5:47 pm

If you use an iDevice, get Opera Mini and turn on mobile view, works quite well. Lemme go take a picture, edit this in a sec XD
EDIT: Here we go...

Bryan · **Posted:** November 2nd, 2010, 7:20 am

Oh, and browsing this place on a 9700 is simply amazing, take my word for it.

Mercifull · **Posted:** November 2nd, 2010, 10:15 am

Ok i'll admit, browsing the actual website isnt too bad in landscape mode. But the forum is a pain to navigate on. Tip.it forums has a mobile skin using IPB but i'm sure there is something similar for phpBB. I'm a bit wary of Tapatalk because it costs money and some people who dont yet have access to paid downloads on the market, cannot access it.

Adbot · **Posted:** November 2nd, 2010, 10:15 am

Shane · **Posted:** November 2nd, 2010, 12:55 pm

Tapatalk is pretty much a no-go. It is a plugin. Plugins add code complexity. For us adding code complexity is something we consider very carefully. For such a small percentage of the userbase it's something we are not looking at. Also, tapatalk isn't guaranteed to work with third party addons... we have many of those.

At this point, unless someone makes us a mobile skin that we like this front is unlikely to see any development aside from the small tweaks and fixes Mike mentioned.

Pfkninenines · Global Moderator 12/4/08

For the limited browsing I do on Rsbandb on my iPod touch, I find it quite reasonable to use Safari or Opera in their native form. Opera with mobile view seems cramped but doable, but either Safari or Opera works for what needs to be viewed.

Not saying Mike and Shane shouldn't make a mobile version, but I think they've expressed that it is low on the priorities... So unless a monetary incentive is added for extra work to ensure the few that would like a custom mobile site, I doubt it'll be worked on in any major fashion in quite a while.

Fudge · **Posted:** November 2nd, 2010, 2:01 pm

Shane wrote:

Tapatalk is pretty much a no-go. It is a plugin. Plugins add code complexity. For us adding code complexity is something we consider very carefully. For such a small percentage of the userbase it's something we are not looking at. Also, tapatalk isn't guaranteed to work with third party addons... we have many of those.

At this point, unless someone makes us a mobile skin that we like this front is unlikely to see any development aside from the small tweaks and fixes Mike mentioned.

What would making a mobile skin involve? Just images or coding too? If it's just images, I'd be happy to make one, as I mainly browse on my iPod.

Mike · **Posted:** November 3rd, 2010, 2:14 pm

I looked around and this is the only mobile skin I could find that has been made for phpbb. I think using opera mini/mobile would look better than using that. I believe it's available for all mobile devices, not just apple devices like Earthy said

A new skin would involve copying and then modifying all the phpbb html template files, and it's css, and maybe a few new images for some that are too large, but yes it's mostly coding because most images should likely be omitted and replaced with text.

The biggest problem I can see with using the site on mobile is the width of the site. I removed the enforcement of a minimum width of 800px. It might make it a bit better, but posts by people with large signatures will still go off the screen because their signature will expand the width of their post.

Earth · **Posted:** November 3rd, 2010, 4:23 pm

Mike wrote:

I believe it's available for all mobile devices, not just apple devices like Earthy said

Don't think ALL, but quite a few
...I need a nickname for you :-k

Fudge · **Posted:** November 7th, 2010, 2:22 pm

I have basically finished a mobile skin. I'm sending it to Mike for approval.