Upgrade forum for viewing on mobile devices

[Asharad]

From another topic:

I know many sites have long supported browsing on web capable phones with special versions of their sites, but it was only a small number of sites. With the advent of smartphones a few years ago, this was no longer strictly necessary. The problem is their smaller screens and need to constantly zoom in and out or scroll. I know phpBB (software the Salem forums runs on) does have special configurations available for smartphones, which should include better presentation of the data for a smaller screen such as on an iOS device or Android. It's worthy of its own thread and encourage those using a smartphone to browse the forums to follow up.

[TotalyMoo]

From another topic:

I know many sites have long supported browsing on web capable phones with special versions of their sites, but it was only a small number of sites. With the advent of smartphones a few years ago, this was no longer strictly necessary. The problem is their smaller screens and need to constantly zoom in and out or scroll. I know phpBB (software the Salem forums runs on) does have special configurations available for smartphones, which should include better presentation of the data for a smaller screen such as on an iOS device or Android. It's worthy of its own thread and encourage those using a smartphone to browse the forums to follow up. ;)

Will look at this.

[milonti]

I know many sites have long supported browsing on web capable phones with special versions of their sites, but it was only a small number of sites. With the advent of smartphones a few years ago, this was no longer strictly necessary. The problem is their smaller screens and need to constantly zoom in and out or scroll. I know phpBB (software the Salem forums runs on) does have special configurations available for smartphones, which should include better presentation of the data for a smaller screen such as on an iOS device or Android. It's worthy of its own thread and encourage those using a smartphone to browse the forums to follow up.

Erm... most professional sites still make mobile versions. A lot of time its the same data in a more phone friendly format, rather than a whole new site.

[MagicManICT]

"Most" is the key word there. With the advent of smartphones, it's no longer necessary, but just convenient. I don't use a smartphone myseff (can't afford it right now), but I try to avoid browsing the web with my iPod unless it's something built in or contained in a app like Google Maps or YouTube. Nothing I've found really fits the screen format. Now, even if I had a smartphone with data access, I still probably wouldn't use it to browse the web even if most pages had a "phone" version of the site that fit a typical iPhone or Android.

[Asharad]

Most of the forums that I visit use a plugin call tapatalk, that makes forum experience much better on mobile devices.

There are other plugins that do the same thing.

http://www.tapatalk.com/

[milonti]

Most of the forums that I visit use a plugin call tapatalk, that makes forum experience much better on mobile devices.

There are other plugins that do the same thing.

http://www.tapatalk.com/

The app costs money :/

[Asharad]

The forum plugin is free. I don't remember how much the app costs. I got it 2 years ago, and it its my most used app.

[Asharad]

Lol, $3. Worth every penny.

[MagicManICT]

Lol, $3. Worth every penny.

Sure, if you do a lot of forum browsing from your phone/mobile device. Looking at the taptalk.com pricing, and it's $700 to set it up on just one forum, $3000 to get licensing to remove all branding from it. I'm assuming it adds an auto-detect to the site so that mobile devices connecting get the secondary formatting and display instead of the standard for a full-sized display without requiring the user to have the app.

[Asharad]

Lol, $3. Worth every penny.

Sure, if you do a lot of forum browsing from your phone/mobile device.

I do.

Looking at the taptalk.com pricing, and it's $700 to set it up on just one forum, $3000 to get licensing to remove all branding from it.

The most basic version is no cost to the forum owner. The $700 version allows forum owners to distribute their own app. The $3000 version allows more options for the custom app. All the forums I visit use the free version. I've seen one forum use the $700 version, but I never downloaded their app (instead I used the standard app).

I'm assuming it adds an auto-detect to the site so that mobile devices connecting get the secondary formatting and display instead of the standard for a full-sized display without requiring the user to have the app.

When a mobile user visits the forum using a web browser, they get a one-time pop-up explaining that the forum is available in Tapatalk. You can ignore it and get the standard web experience (yuk). It doesn't force or require users to do anything different. In order to get the Tapatalk experience, you launch the Tapatalk app instead of a web browser.