Forum Mobile Site Updated - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 21, 2020, 03:04:00 am
content: The forum mobile site plugin (SMF4mobile) has been upgraded. It was hugely out of date! As in v1.0 to 2.5.4Probably a large number of changes since then.

author: 0culus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2020, 02:01:20 am
content: Hmmm, so I tried logging in on my phone, and apparently the *old* mobile site is still working? It also will not allow me to log in. The error page shown occurs when I try to log in.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 27, 2020, 03:37:38 am
content: Quote from: 0culus on February 27, 2020, 02:01:20 amNot sure why it shows v1.1.5. Anyway it used to show 1.0, so it's certainly the updated site.

author: 0culus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2020, 04:03:25 am
content: OK, but it still won't allow me to login. Not that I consume the forum often from my phone, but figure it might be a bug others are experiencing. Or maybe I'm just a special snowflake.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 27, 2020, 04:33:11 am
content: Turns out I didn't have the mobile theme installed, so that's done now and old one removed. So now running the latest SMF4MOBILE code core and theme. The mobile website will now look substantially different.No idea why you can't log in, try again?

author: beanflying
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2020, 05:15:11 am
content: Just tried and I the default is for the full site. With my phone I seemed to get the old mobile site maybe 1 in three times and the full site on the others. I generally switched to the full site anyway as it gives more options when posting and adding attachments.Tried entering the site on about 10 times on my phone from links, saved bookmark and google search and it is still defaulting to the full site. Something is amiss with the Auto Detect

author: greenpossum
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2020, 05:19:19 am
content: Where is the mark all unread posts as read action now?

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 27, 2020, 05:21:52 am
content: Quote from: greenpossum on February 27, 2020, 05:19:19 amSorry, don't know, I rarely use the mobile site myself.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2020, 08:18:37 am
content: Yuck, as a heavy user of the mobile forum this is NOT an improvement. Attack of the flat design fad, low contrast light gray with lighter gray, that awful garish solid blue everywhere and I can't seem to scroll without the topics I'm scrolling past lighting up blue as I touch to drag them. MASSIVE font that looks almost twice the size as it was requiring more scrolling. Controls moved around for no apparent reason. Might have to get used to using the full site on my phone, or find something else to do while I'm on the bus.Seems all the UI/UX designers vanished around the time Windows 8 appeared and despite being wildly unpopular the UI trends it introduced have spread everywhere. massive seas of white space, ever decreasing information density and little to separate different parts of an interface is still all the rage.

author: HwAoRrDk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2020, 11:08:09 am
content: Quote from: james_s on February 27, 2020, 08:18:37 amYeah, why does the text have to be so large? I don't like that at all. The previous mobile theme was just right in that respect.It seems to be a thing for 'mobile-friendly' web site layouts to have excessively large text. It's unwarranted in my opinion. I mean, do the people who make these design choices think we're all long-sighted and hold our phones at arm's length? Anyone who really is in need of larger text can always increase the text scaling in their browser settings.Other than that, I think the new mobile theme is fairly good. Although, user profile pagesstilldon't show a user's country (it can often be helpful to know where in the world someone is when replying to them).

author: greenpossum
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2020, 11:15:53 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 27, 2020, 05:21:52 amWell that's a retrograde step then. It was useful to mark everything read on mobile, then I don't see them again on the mobile or desktop.

author: Fred27
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 27, 2020, 11:54:14 am
content: I agree that "mark all as read" is essential. The new layout I'm not bothered one way or the other.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2020, 04:47:30 pm
content: I've played with it a bit more and come to the conclusion that the mobile interface is unusable now. I've switched to the full site for now but that is only marginally better on a mobile device.If it ain't broke, fix it till it is.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 27, 2020, 10:01:34 pm
content: I have to update to the latest version to keep up with bug fixes. I'll talk to the developer

author: Ranayna
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2020, 02:15:42 pm
content: Security updates are indeed important. If those would not often break or change functionality, they would be way more accepted thoughI cannot say that I like the new mobile design, the contrasts in the topic list are bad, there is overlapping text, and there is still functionality missing. And I personally cannot stand the flat design philosophy...Regarding the big difference in look and feel between mobile and desktop site, I have seen several forums (fora) that have switched to XenForo, which in my opinion has an incredibly seamless mobile integration.Are there any plans of looking at more current forum software?

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2020, 04:05:26 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on February 27, 2020, 08:18:37 amI have to agree to that; the flat view and lack of clear distinction between posts is a bit of a turnoff. However, I can now click on a user and see its information much clearer (the thing I like the best is the location information, but stats and other things are quite nice as well). I also like the "Full Site" icon in more convenient places.Quote from: james_s on February 27, 2020, 08:18:37 amI love the larger fonts - my eyesight is not what it used to be. The mobile browsers did not scale at all on my phone (FF, Chrome) and I always had to zoom in, drag, drag, drag, zoom out, then zoom in again, drag, drag, drag... It was crap.Although I see the case for letting the user select the size of font on the mobile version.

author: 0culus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2020, 11:26:07 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 27, 2020, 04:33:11 amWorks for me now, and I'm seeing the new look.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 29, 2020, 12:00:08 am
content: I am shaking in my boots waiting when the main desktop site will go down the drain with the mandatory flat interface.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 29, 2020, 01:59:55 am
content: Quote from: Bud on February 29, 2020, 12:00:08 am

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 29, 2020, 02:03:04 am
content: Quote from: Ranayna on February 28, 2020, 02:15:42 pmI agree about XenoForo, it's my favorite, I use it on several other forums I contribute to.If I was to switch then it would be to that, but no plans for that. Peoplehatechange, they absolutely despise it, the uproar would be enormous if I changed forum software.I guarantee that if I did a user poll it would be a resounding NO for change.

author: donkey77
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 29, 2020, 08:53:05 am
content: Yes, I don't like change either but I guess you get used to a new design. It's the functionality that's the issue for me. The update now opens each group automatically, ie beginners, products, computing etc meaning you need to scroll a lot more or minimize each time. The most frustrating thing though is if you open an attachment/photo and then go back, instead of returning to where you were in the page at goes back to the top of it. A pain in the arse if you were down near the bottom of the thread.

author: cgroen
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 29, 2020, 09:07:07 am
content: Quote from: donkey77 on February 29, 2020, 08:53:05 amThats also my main issue with the new versionI use always the "recent unread topics", and then I scroll down, when I then see something interesting, clicks on it, reads the posts and clicks "back", I will return to the top of the page. The old version would get me exactly at the same spot so I could just scroll on from there. Very annoying.

author: beanflying
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 29, 2020, 09:15:30 am
content: Like all SMF themes they can be tweaked with TIME and EFFORT and some coding skills so adding back in features is possible. I would prefer for example a Dark theme as an option for PC use but I know how much time is involved to keep one theme looking good let alone adding another so I will make do.Not sure if the Site still has the Tapatalk plugin installed or if it is worth looking at again/now?

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 29, 2020, 09:21:17 am
content: Quote from: beanflying on February 29, 2020, 09:15:30 amDave ditched it a few months back IIRC but it might be still installed.

author: thinkfat
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 29, 2020, 10:09:59 am
content: Quote from: cgroen on February 29, 2020, 09:07:07 amFor me it works just like that, Chrome on Android.

author: cgroen
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 29, 2020, 10:11:48 am
content: Quote from: thinkfat on February 29, 2020, 10:09:59 amSorry, I should have added that to my post also, chrome on Android for me also

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2020, 06:42:52 am
content: My biggest beef with the new layout is that the lists of thread titles (within each section) look just terrible on iOS (Safari): The blue thread titles regularly run into the views/replies count located to the upper right of each title. That looks like a plain old bug in the layout to me. Do others see the same behavior?

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2020, 07:58:28 am
content: Quote from: ebastler on March 02, 2020, 06:42:52 amYes, I noticed that too. The whole thing looks all around amateurish and broken. Somebody probably complained that the old version looked "dated" so they tried to modernize it, fixing what isn't broken is a plague of mature products.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2020, 11:27:09 am
content: On a mobile I always select "Desktop Site" for any website and just pinch and zoom in to read.Just checked and noticed that change and a small blue bar at the top but I just prefer selecting the desktop site where I can read a lot more and be able to get to things easily with a bit of pinch and zoom thanks to the high resolution on some phones.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 03, 2020, 12:19:51 pm
content: Quote from: MrMobodies on March 02, 2020, 11:27:09 amSame.