Mobile version of the forum

[Arantor]

Hmmm, I'm sure you know best. I mean, I'm only formerly of the actual SMF dev team, I only literally worked on SMF 2.1 and did some of the responsive stuff for it. I only work on an SMF fork these days and have banged my head repeatedly on trying to make the responsive stuff work on mobile correctly...

[drewactual]

Civil discussion much? 

For all the good you do your superiority complex detracts from your legend.

Can we try this again? 

What display issues can't be managed with css?  I don't doubt the information you've presented even a little bit.  I ask to gain the insight.

[Gwenwyfar]

Css is indeed the best way to go for most of the "responsiveness", but it is also something that takes a lot of work to get working properly, so it's not something you can recommend just anyone does. 2.0 also has some extra obstacles since it was not made thinking about it. We often get comments here or even themes that don't realize this before attempting to do it.

[drewactual]

when style was separated from function it was a glorious day. 

being able to control the rendering/interface of a script by altering a single file was something that was an answered prayer for many of us who've had web presence since the the early days and who do/did so without expansive staffs or budgets for outsourcing. 

this is long before open source was a common thing and engines like SMF weren't hatched yet. 

not having to go through every single page in a site to make styling updates, or simply making styling updates without concern for breaking function is still something we encounter.  i see it too with the scripting here (2.0.+), and the majority if not all of it is due to inline styling.  so... I know about that as an obstacle for controlling UI, but it seems there is something I'm missing?  It seemed to me Arantor may have been alluding to that but didn't specify what....

in all honesty and in reality SMF is superbly constructed to other alternatives, else I wouldn't work with it.  I can (and have) taken SMF and planted it as one side of a webpage- with other engines such as WordPress holding up the other side (which is not 'superbly' constructed, but there is just so much readily available for getting moving fast with WP they are hard to ignore and/or at least 'give them a shot'). 

through CSS alone, and by constraining elements using the same declarations with both, i can make them appear to integrate seamlessly.  this IS, in fact, intricate and often difficult.. I HAVE spent literal days on a single element in attempt to get it to 'play nicely', just to find out the cause was (most often) 'inline styling'... it takes filtering through (rendered) source code, using all the developer toys available, and sometimes just plain luck to find things that need altering to make it render how you want......... and then you pray an update doesn't come along and undo what took you forever to accomplish which means you'd have to go back and do it all over again.

here is what i'm getting at:

you can make any script render however you want using style sheets alone, SO LONG AS the 'inline' style or strict rendering isn't embedded throughout the source... that is the ONLY time i've encountered these 'issues'.  my question remains about specific issues with making SMF responsive. 

on an aside- yes, making a page totally responsive and functional to the same degree in smaller media (phones) as on a desktop is almost impossible (within my skillset).  it takes quite a bit of 'cutting' some things free while using the smaller formats- and i hate that, but... using that approach, it's served me well. 

an example is: a user can't see the topic icons to see if it's 'new' or if the thread is one they've participated in using my mobile version of the same theme.  I had to sacrifice that to provide real estate for other things such as the thread topic itself.. I chose to trim down all the 'peripheral' things such as ad space and links, delegating some of those to under the content on mobile as another example of 'sacrifice'.  my advertisers don't like it near as much as my users do... that was a choice i had to make. 

all said:  you can absolutely have a 'mobile' responsive theme from any theme, and quickly- not using js or viewpoint or alternative themes based on the browser tags.  it can be the same theme as the desktop version.  it DOES take a lot of time to dial everything in, and there will be things you discover long after you 'think' you're done... an example of that is most of the things in the Admin section- it's about useless to try to administrate my forum from a mobile device- but that is yet another sacrifice i tossed to the deities of the web, which is basically looking out for my users more so than my administrators or moderators... I tell them to not even try- just fire up the desktop/laptop if they need to do something to the site.   

[bharat]

We have quite a few awards on the forum and while using mobile version they took a lot of space, you need to scrol down all the time to read the text. Also you can't see avatar of the member so it is not easy to understand who is writing. I know that on many sites you can switch the full version if you don't want to use the mibile one so I was wondering if I can do the same here?

[shawnb61]

You can let folks choose.  You can install multiple themes, and allow folks to choose which one they want.

Folks who want mobile, can choose a good responsive theme.  Folks who want the existing theme, and don't mind pinching and zooming can do so. 

When I offered a mobile theme, I was surprised that some preferred pinching & zooming on their mobile.  Felt they can see more on one screen.  Always had ALL of the features (you sometimes lose some features on mobile to make it fit on a smaller form factor).  But to each his/her own. 

I defaulted to a good mobile theme (responsive curve) and gave folks instructions on changing their themes back to the old core theme if they wanted.

[Arantor]

Civil discussion much? 

For all the good you do your superiority complex detracts from your legend.

Can we try this again? 

What display issues can't be managed with css?  I don't doubt the information you've presented even a little bit.  I ask to gain the insight.

I wasn't questioning the premise of that it could be done in CSS. I was gently, then more forcefully, questioning how easy you think it is to "just do it".

[bharat]

I defaulted to a good mobile theme (responsive curve) and gave folks instructions on changing their themes back to the old core theme if they wanted.

I instaleld this one for now, is it the one you mean? http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=4040

[bharat]

One more question why in mobile version of the forum avatars are not visible? Is it possible to make them visible?

[Arantor]

In Curve Responsive they're hidden to give more room to the content. Think that's the same in 2.1 as well from which Curve Responsive is derived.

[bharat]

So there is no way to make them visible?

[Arantor]

Not without changing the mod.

[bharat]

I see, it is not easy for our members as many of them recognize each other by avatars.

[Arantor]

To have an avatar at a usefully visible size on something like 320px wide means losing a fair chunk of the space you do have.

[bharat]

We have small avatars on the forum, not bigger than 160px

[Arantor]

160px is half the width on a small iPhone or a quarter of the width on a newer iPhone, just for reference.

[drewactual]

mine shows avatars.... i'm pretty sure (i'd have to look to make certain) i used css to control the size in mobile browsers.   

instead of displaying to the left of a post, i used css to move it above the post which opened up a lot of real estate... just a thought, but my reckoning is that width is precious, where height is abundant.

[Arantor]

This is why Curve Responsive by default hides it because space is limited...

[bharat]

Can someone tell me if there is a diference between Mobile-Desktop and Responsive Curve, does the mobile version look the same? I saw in many sites that there is a button which allows you to switch to the full version. Some of our members who use Firefox on mobiles can do that.

[bharat]

There is also one problem, for many members the icons on the top are not visible correctly, instead of them they see question marks, what can be the reason?