More improved support for smartphones

#1: Post by HB » March 3rd, 2012, 3:41 pm

Nowadays almost 20% of visitors/members use a smartphone to access the site. Continuing the work I started last year described in Improved support for smartphones, below are some recent snapshots:

Reduced verbiage, increased size of link hotspots

Increase size of pagination link hotspots

Hide address bar

I have tested this on an iPhone and iPad. If you see layout problems on other devices or have suggestions, please let me know. Thanks!

#2: Post by **allon** » March 3rd, 2012, 3:58 pm

You neglected to mention the direct page navigation that showed up recently.

March 3rd, 2012, 4:46 pm

Indeed, the page navigation was reworked to make it more smartphone friendly:

The Next and Previous buttons are bigger and the individual page links are centered. It was too easy to mistakenly press the wrong button with the prior layout. To see this difference, you may have to clear the browser cache since it's a CSS change. If you click the "Page n of m" link, it prompts for the page number. It's on my list to rework that to present a rolling selection instead.

Another change that may not be obvious is the "tamper" logo in the masthead links directly to the main page of the forums (the "Home-Barista.com" graphic links to the homepage).

#4: Post by **Intrepid510** » March 31st, 2012, 12:47 pm

My biggest and really only complaint about the mobile version of the site is moving from one fourm to the next. I.E. Say I am in the Grinders forum and I want to go to Coffees. I have to click on the Forums link and then the whole index has to load before I can then move over. Basically an additional page, and if you are getting crappy coverage from At&t it can be a slight annoyance.

If it would be possible it seems if at the top of the forum you are currently in instead of being Forums:Grinders, if it was a drop down Menu that said the current forum you were in and then if you wanted to navigate to a different one, all you would need to do is click on it and then scroll down to where you want to go.

March 31st, 2012, 1:30 pm

I use the back button, but I see your point. I've added the "Jump to" selection list to the mobile template. Look for it on the bottom right of the page.

#6: Post by **Intrepid510** » March 31st, 2012, 7:59 pm

Thanks that made it a lot easier to move around the site for me while on the phone.

#7: Post by **jrtatl** » August 6th, 2012, 10:32 am

Forgive me for bumping an old topic, but I figured that was better than starting a new one.

I've been inactive for quite a long time, but I used to be a regular poster. I've started reading the site again lately.

Has there been any change on the idea of Tapatalk support?

Reading other threads I got the impression that Tapatalk seemed too invasive or something. Due to the large number of other fora using it, I'm wondering if the plugin has gotten more secure. Seems like a lot of forum operators think it is ok to use.

Personally I just find it easier to use Tapatalk because it aggregates all the forums I frequent into one convenient place.

Also, a big hello to everyone I used to communicate with here at HB.

August 8th, 2012, 8:40 am

To help decide how much time/effort/cost to invest in the mobile interface, I created a homepage poll:

The results suggest that the current web-based interface is acceptable to the majority of HB members using mobile devices. While Tapatalk/Forumrunner have their advantages (notably combining multiple forums), I would rather stick with the tweaked mobile-friendly web format and keep a lot of the customizations I've done than introduce third-party software.

#9: Post by **pizzaman383** » August 8th, 2012, 8:56 am

The only additional comment I have is that the AdChoices button is near the next button and is much larger.

August 8th, 2012, 10:09 am

I don't control the size of the click arrows in ads, but I did add more mobile-friendly page turners (below, center) and increased the size of the secondary next/previous buttons (below, right). The screenshot below is on an iPhone in landscape mode.