[NOW IMPLEMENTED!] View Mobile Version On Desktop System?

[MageUK]

Pinch to zoom actually intentionally doesn't work in order to make the site correctly fit the device, otherwise the mobile site doesn't work as well as it should.

 

What device are you using, what's the screen size and resolution?

 

What about in landscape mode? Is it still too small?

[Mercifull]

HTC Desire / Running Android 2.3 Gingerbread (3.7in screen)

 

iPhone4S / iOS 5 (3.5in screen)

 

iPad2 / iOS 5 (10.1in screen portrait)

 

As you can see the actual text is very small. It's actually easier to read on these screenshots than it is in real life.

[Kaphias]

What about in landscape mode? Is it still too small?

Font size doesn't change from landscape to portrait for me on my iPhone4/iOS5. When I look at Mercifull's iPad screenshot on my computer, the font is almost the same size as on my phone. The other two screenshots aren't representative, due to the "retina screen" technology they utilize, I'm assuming.

[Mercifull]

Yes sorry. Font size is same on iPad as it is on the other devices. No change between portrait or landscape.

[MageUK]

The font size is identical on my Samsung Galaxy S which is a 4" screen and it's perfectly readable. Is it *just* too small or is it completely unreadable? I suspect it just needs a small size increase in the CSS.

[essiw]

Ipad 1 has the same problems, font size changes a tiny bit to landscape mode, but still to tiny, no pinch zoom at all. Although the normal website is readable and usable, you can only pinch zoom a bit there.

I like the normal website better then the mobile website so this will not have much effect on me either way :P

[Mercifull]

Realistically i'm unlikely to use mobile site on iPad but a bump up in the font size for phones would be greatly appreciated.

[D. V. Devnull]

For reference, the mobile device that I have occasional access to is a Pandigital Novel 7" Tablet, primarily designed for reading e-books. (If needs be, I can get a copy of the useragent on the mobile device to post here, but I hope it will not come to that...) The screenshot that Mercifull has of their Android device's browser looks rather similar to what I see on the tablet I've used here, but minus a ton of the black top bar's clutter and plus a few buttons. Also, I don't see any of that blur that I'm seeing here on the forums in those screenshots from the images that load while on the tablet. (BTW, a little surprised that he was able to get a screenshot from his Android device... I don't have that kind of option here.) For zooming, I'm able to tap some buttons that show up while I'm scrolling, instead of having to deal with multi-touch madness, which makes shifting around a page and looking at stuff rather painless. Personally, I'm surprised that I've been able to navigate Tip.It's full-version pages as well as I have on that device, seeing as I'm limited by an 800x600 display. :mellow:

 

BTW, having seen the mobile version on the desktop, I do see two things definitely worth changing. First, the borders can be removed on those images for "site home" and "go-back arrow", as there's no need for the borders on image links. Heck, I'm surprised those borders aren't showing to mobile users. As for the second item, add underlines to text links, as it is impossible to easily find and select that type of links on the pages. As Mercifull's screenshots point out, all the spots where there are text links are not easily visible to people using the mobile devices, and they're the same way to desktop users as well. :geek:

 

As for font sizes, I don't know what to tell you beyond the fact that it already looks fine to me. Resolutions of 800x600 @ 7" seem to take rather well to Tip.It's Mobile Site, but that's probably due to how the small tablet I've used goes about rendering the pages. You might be able to safely bump it up a point or two, but not much more before it could cause some unexpected inverse problems. ;)

 

 

 

Off-Topic @ Mercifull -- Regarding the ads, I apologize for the confusion I caused you before. What I was saying was that ad revenue gained via mobile devices will still happen without dropping it on all the mobile pages. Any time that a mobile user would have to go so far as accessing a calculator, a full-version page would have to load anyway, immediately causing the display of at least two ads for every access by a mobile device. Honestly, the revenue gained there will rack up rather reasonably, in and of itself. (Of course, that is providing that the mobile user has a browser that can tolerate those pages in the first place.) Beyond that, maybe one small 300x40 on the front page, but anything beyond that would cause access speed issues to anyone trying to not rack up awful duration-related data charges on their smartphones, tablets, and/or other mobile devices. :o

 

 

 

Okay, everyone, pardon me while I buzz off again. I have the feeling I've missed something I wanted to say, but due to IRL issues, my brain is having another chunk of forum burnout. :-?

 

~D. V. "I'm on overload, and still trying to get as much as I can into these forum posts!" Devnull

[Mercifull]

From what I can tell your tablet can only be running 2.3 Gingerbread at the very best, a lot of the screenshots even look as low as 1.5 cupcake. Do you know what version of Android it's running? You should see if there is an update available or possibly root it and install a proper tablet os like Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich. Your device isn't listed as one of the official devices supported by CyanogenMod but a peek at the forums shows that some people have managed to do it reasonably easily. You don't appear to be a computer novice so im sure its something you could do. Installing a custom rom will also ensure that your device doesn't have the CarrierIQ rootkit installed by some manufacturers and mobile networks. On a 7" tab though you should really be using the desktop version of the site. Mobile skins are always going to be optimised for screens between 3-5 inches. I get quite annoyed sometimes when websites force me to use their mobile skin on my iPad when its perfectly capable of displaying the desktop version fine. Are you able to doom a page out to scale it to fit the screen or are you locked into the 800x600 display? I suppose that's just a limitation of what's effectively an e-reader with a browser.

 

I was able to take a screenshot because I have "rooted" my Desire and installed a custom ROM, in my case CyanogenMod7. You might be able to tell that it looks more like stock Android and not HTC Sense. On my phone I simply press and hold the on/off button and several options pop up such as turn on/off wifi airplane mode etc as well as a 'take screenshot' option. Sadly this feature is not available by default in Android nor in many of the manufactuer roms such as Sense (HTC), MotoBlur (Motorola) or TouchWiz (Samsung)... unless Sammy have added it recently that I'm not aware of.

 

Strange about those borders on the mobile skin using desktop browsers. I'm sure this is a simple css error and can be fixed easily.

 

It's interesting you mention the display resolution because my phone is 480×800 and those fonts look very small to me. I suppose because your screen is twice the size the fonts look twice as big? I don't think many people are going to be using the mobile skin on 7 or 10 inch tablets as resolutions that small so I think it would be for the benefit of more people if the font sizes are increased.

 

As for the adverts, I see your points but you have to remember that ads should be relevant for the device you are using too. If someone is using tipit on an iPhone woudlnt it be better to display adverts for iPhone cases and accessories than "1 simple rule for a flat stomach". It's more likely to end up as a conversion click and thus generate more money for the running of the site.

[D. V. Devnull]

From what I can tell your tablet can only be running 2.3 Gingerbread at the very best, a lot of the screenshots even look as low as 1.5 cupcake. Do you know what version of Android it's running?

Last I knew/checked, Android version is 2.0 ... I know, not very high, seeing as I've heard version 4.0 exists already. :-?

 

 

You should see if there is an update available or possibly root it and install a proper tablet os like Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich. Your device isn't listed as one of the official devices supported by CyanogenMod but a peek at the forums shows that some people have managed to do it reasonably easily. You don't appear to be a computer novice so im sure its something you could do. Installing a custom rom will also ensure that your device doesn't have the CarrierIQ rootkit installed by some manufacturers and mobile networks. On a 7" tab though you should really be using the desktop version of the site. Mobile skins are always going to be optimised for screens between 3-5 inches. I get quite annoyed sometimes when websites force me to use their mobile skin on my iPad when its perfectly capable of displaying the desktop version fine. Are you able to doom a page out to scale it to fit the screen or are you locked into the 800x600 display? I suppose that's just a limitation of what's effectively an e-reader with a browser.

 

I was able to take a screenshot because I have "rooted" my Desire and installed a custom ROM, in my case CyanogenMod7. You might be able to tell that it looks more like stock Android and not HTC Sense. On my phone I simply press and hold the on/off button and several options pop up such as turn on/off wifi airplane mode etc as well as a 'take screenshot' option. Sadly this feature is not available by default in Android nor in many of the manufactuer roms such as Sense (HTC), MotoBlur (Motorola) or TouchWiz (Samsung)... unless Sammy have added it recently that I'm not aware of.

As I said before, I can start a scroll in the browser that comes with the tablet, and zoom buttons come up. (I can't do pinch-zooming because the tablet isn't physically multitouch-capable.) I'm able to use those buttons to zoom pretty much all the way out and rescale the desktop version to fit the screen. |^_^|

 

As for your Large iPad, I am very surprised you're not running something like FireFox to get around that issue. I think the Mac Desktop version of FireFox is capable of running on there? :mellow:

 

As for rooting the device, I won't be able to talk my dad (He owns the device. As I said before, I only have access to use the tablet occasionally.) into that until he finds a way to backup all of the data that's currently on there. Do you happen to know of any way to slip past the device's pre-installed measures to do that? Plugging it into the PC only gives access to one of the directories on the device. The only package for changing over, which Pandigital themselves provide (and is probably the only 100%-compatible package to use for upgrading the tablet), would just wipe everything that's there right now. :(

 

 

Strange about those borders on the mobile skin using desktop browsers. I'm sure this is a simple css error and can be fixed easily.

I was thinking that same thing too, ha ha. I'm sure something like a "border: 0px" would fix that, right? :)

 

 

It's interesting you mention the display resolution because my phone is 480×800 and those fonts look very small to me. I suppose because your screen is twice the size the fonts look twice as big? I don't think many people are going to be using the mobile skin on 7 or 10 inch tablets as resolutions that small so I think it would be for the benefit of more people if the font sizes are increased.

Strangely, I actually find it easier to use the mobile versions on the tablet where possible instead of the desktop versions, give or take a few things that force me to use desktop versions to access them. It's probably due to the fact that I have to keep shifting the zoom on the desktop versions of sites to see different things with the tablet's browser, depending on if they're larger or smaller. In fact, we could probably use a mobile-compatible version of the Tip.It Times (the only thing I think Tip.It Mobile is missing) because of that, in my opinion. :-k

 

 

As for the adverts, I see your points but you have to remember that ads should be relevant for the device you are using too. If someone is using tipit on an iPhone woudlnt it be better to display adverts for iPhone cases and accessories than "1 simple rule for a flat stomach". It's more likely to end up as a conversion click and thus generate more money for the running of the site.

I don't think anything is going to affect the relevance of ads being served if only the mobile front and the calculators/planners have advert spots on them, and users are forced to use the desktop versions for stuff that really can't be reconfigured to layout/work on a mobile device. How much could/would it really affect ad relevance to have the mobile pages for items/monsters/shops/news showing (or not showing, like now) an advert, anyway? :huh:

 

 

 

At this point, I'm buzzing off again. I'll be back to look for replies. This day has been an overload on my brain, somewhere under the header of "wall banger", like this little fella... :arrow: :wall:

 

 

~D. V. "Left with notes of curiosity on the mind..." Devnull

 

 

(p.s.: Looking between my past post and this one, I knew I forgot something before... lol...)

[Randox]

I went through the news and bestiary on my Blackberry 9800, and all the fonts look just fine to me.

[D. V. Devnull]

Just re-checked the mobile site on the tablet. We could do with a slight font size increase on the smaller text parts of search results, bestiary/item/shop pages, and the news listing. The front page and all larger title-variety fonts on those other pages are already perfectly fine. ;)

 

Oh, and PLEASE, underline text links! I'm going nuts, trying to figure out what is and isn't a link. :ohnoes:

 

~D. V. "A quick-but-square-on review for you..." Devnull

[Mil]

I'm not sure if it is obvious or if it was mentioned before, but the mobile site is nowhere near a final version. The priority in development is with the desktop version of the site. Ideally, for a mobile version we would use a jquery-based framework to display content across various devices/OS's. As it stands now, the mobile version of the site is quite minimal, but functioning. It was never announced, but merely something put in place for future development.

[das]

looks fine on my android 2.3.4 - Don't really see any issues in Dolphin Browser at least, the text is no worse to read than many other mobile sites.

[D. V. Devnull]

I'm not sure if it is obvious or if it was mentioned before, but the mobile site is nowhere near a final version. The priority in development is with the desktop version of the site. Ideally, for a mobile version we would use a jquery-based framework to display content across various devices/OS's. As it stands now, the mobile version of the site is quite minimal, but functioning. It was never announced, but merely something put in place for future development.

And I was the lunatic to run over it while trying to look at the desktop version of the new site beta on that tablet. LOL :XD:

 

Still though, for what's there currently, it's pretty awesome. |^_^|

 

Don't worry about priority issues however, because there's no major rush either. I don't think any of us here are 'out of their mind' enough to dare think of trying to push. This thread which I started kinda expanded past its' original purpose, at partial fault from my starting it before I ended up taking some major IRL downtime so I couldn't keep up with it. :oops:

 

Anyway, at least the discussion/comments on this thread can help you set up a list of what you might do later in regard to getting it just picture-perfect. Which, BTW, the amount of JavaScript you're using right now seems to be perfect for performance, including what of JQuery/etc. that you're already using. (I checked the page elements, thanks to ABP having an alternate use as a page object diagnostic tool.) Honestly, I wouldn't change that part if I were you. If anything, it would be worthwhile to enlarge the smallest fonts just a point or two, make text links underlined & vice versa for button images, and maybe add on the Tip.It Times to the Mobile Site. Other than that, I personally think you've got it right already, two thumbs up included. :thumbsup:

 

~D. V. "No rush... Just a few minor things left at this point... Maybe something to add later." Devnull

 

 

 

(p.s.: Sorry for sounding like I was trying to rush anything, both before, and now as well! I'm honestly not trying to!)