| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| jema |
Any saddos who want to access the forum via a mobile?I have a quick patch to make the forum a lot more mobile accessible, if anyone is sad enough to want it? |
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| Fee |
You're really selling it, Jema 
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| jamanda |
How does that work then? | ||||||
| jema |
Basically I have found a severely reduced "template" that will only show the essentials, and a function can spot that you are on a mobile and use that template in place of the normal one. It is very trivial to do. | ||||||
| Cathryn |
If it's trivial then do it! 
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| Fee |
If trivial, it would be handy while on long journeys, for us saddos 
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| Behemoth |
Is he talking about these cordless phones with a computer box in them? | ||||||
| jema |
done | ||||||
| admin |
It works not too badly | ||||||
| Cathryn |
Hmm, not so sure about it from the forum end however.
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| Rob R |
Cordless phones 
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| RichardW |
Have tried before using the forum via a mobile & it was to painful. Will try again now.
Still seems just as bad, sorry. |
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| jema |
What are you seeing?
I have been browsing and even made a post quite effectively. Do you see a very stripped down template? e.g. none of the stuff that is usually on the side, no graphics, no links at the top... |
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| vegplot |
How is the browser detection done? | ||||||
| Mrs R |
what phones would do this and how much does it cost? | ||||||
| jema |
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| jema |
I'm dead ignorant on mobiles  My charges are 30p for any day that I use the net, that is on virgin.
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| vegplot |
That's interesting, I'm using
I missed out Nokia and Symbian 
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| jema |
Where I am unsure is whether I should actually put in iphone? is there a point where the mobile is actually good enough not to be cut down? | ||||||
| Mrs R |
but thats 30p the whole day, not per minute - because when WAP was first out I seem to remember it was something like £3/min
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| Fee |
Testing from my Nokia, much better in terms of speed, I see a text list of forums, with description. Missing the latest posts tho.
Will this actually post, there stands the test for me. Ixy, many providers offer that illusive 'unlimited' internet, some as little as #5pm, they all differ in cost and t&c's. There is a thread on here about it somewhere. Hope this posts after all that typing! |
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| Fee |
Cool, it did
Yeah, it isn't very pretty and very basic, but it's a lot quicker. |
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| jema |
made a few tweaks. | ||||||
| mrs_ursus |
Works a treat on my iphone. Super-speedy. | ||||||
| RichardW |
I get a long list of links before I get to any info | ||||||
| jema |
What browser? | ||||||
| Nick |
It's always worked just fine on my Crackberry, now it's less green. I'd say no change was needed for Crackberries or iPhones.
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| jema |
I'd differ strongly using a Blackberry 8310. It was pretty unusable.
But as you can see I have wondered about this question 
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| RichardW |
Do you mean what phone? Its a Sony erricson 850i |
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| jema |
NO I mean what browser is used on the phone, we need to know the browser type. | ||||||
| Nick |
Ah, true nuff. I have a Storm. |
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| RichardW |
Does this make sense?
WAP 2.0/HTML (NetFront) |
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| bagpuss |
This is cool from an iPhone
the posting screen still takes a while to load though |
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| bagpuss |
I would say it's useful the iPhone as the lack of side menus means in landscape mode no zooming is needed | ||||||
| jema |
What we need is the "user agent" and I don't think that is it. |
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| RichardW |
UserAgent: SEW850i/J2ME-IMPS-MMG
or SonyEricssonW850i/R1ED Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 UNTRUSTED/1.0 |
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| jema |
Please access :
http://zaphod.myfreeforum.org/test/ on the phone, then I can check the logs for it. Please no one else access the link. |
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| RichardW |
done | ||||||
| nora |
just seeing if I can post reply from my mobile. | ||||||
| nora |
Oh......I can. Thanks jema. | ||||||
| jema |
No sign of the access
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| RichardW |
Odd. I got a page with a load of links on it.
Ah must have miss typed it now get forbidden message |
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| jamanda |
Forbidden message here too. | ||||||
| RichardW |
??? |
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| jamanda |
Yeah - I thought he meant off the computer - I know - he'll be along to shout at me in person before long. | ||||||
| jema |
looks like netfront is the man. Try accessing the forum now. | ||||||
| RichardW |
Lol . 
Well thats done some thing. I think the screen is just to small (2" x 1 1/2" ish) to be usable. To many hot links in to small a space. Front page is loads better but the "view new posts" page is very cluttered & looks like a page of unformated text. |
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| jema |
try now. | ||||||
| RichardW |
Thats better on phone now | ||||||
| RichardW |
That was much better.
Cleaner neater & less clutter. Well done. |
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| jema |
I find it odd that this was a supposed hack for the job, but which missed out on a lot of obvious things that needed doing
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| Cathryn |
Very impressive to a non techie nevertheless. | ||||||
| Bernie66 |
it is quicker but as I access through wireless lan it is only fractionally quicker. How can I get the normal instead on my nokia e51 or do I have to get the mobile version now? | ||||||
| jema |
Currently there is no option, but that will be sorted. | ||||||
| Hairyloon |
I'm in two minds which way I prefered it: it's cleaner this way, but on mine I've lost the "quote" button, which I don't want to be without.
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| Bernie66 |
cheers, | ||||||
| jema |
that can be tweaked. |
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| sean |
The answer to your original question appears to be "Yes, loads."
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| Barefoot Andrew |
...although I do use email on my phone quite a lot, despite that being a bit tedious too.
A. |
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| admin |
Via a blackberry.it is not that bad
And I really don't go for tech for techs sake. |
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| jema |
Now at the top of the forum, you can toggle "mobile mode". | ||||||
| Bernie66 |
Thank you, twas hoffiic to look at for any length of time, now normal functionality has resumed
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| jema |
From my Blackberry I not surprisingly see things differently.
The mobile mode in column view is 10x more usable for me. |
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| Nick |
Love the ability to turn the option off. Thanks. | ||||||
| jema |
I have put quote/edit/delete/ip back in. | ||||||
| jema |
I have also put in a style for quoted text.
Is there anything else that needs adding to the mobile view? bearing in mind it is meant to be minimal. |
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| Hairyloon |
Cheers. I couldn't see "edit" when I was on earlier... |
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| jema |
forum pages are also totally redone. | ||||||
| Barefoot Andrew |
Oops, have you upset the latest post links in the RH column of a forum listing?
A. |
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| vegplot |
Posting this via my blackberry bold, much more useable. | ||||||
| jema |
The date no longer links, but there should be a little icon that does. | ||||||
| jema |
Some more tweaks are in, so I'd be curious if the people who had found the full mode better still have problems with the mobile mode? | ||||||
| bagpuss |
I prefer the longer links as very small icons can be difficult to press on the iphone just because they are smaller than my fingers |
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| jema |
I can't think of any links that have been made shorter
I guess the latest/last post icons are a problem though? I doubt a mobile mode will ever be one size fits all. e.g. the blackberry has a small screen and an accurate trackball, small links are therefore idea for it. |
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| bagpuss |
No certainly, it might be nice to give people an option to get out of the mobile mode if they don't like it. Any touch screen phone will have issues with links being smaller than finger size |
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| jema |
there is an option at the top of the screen to get out of mobile mode! | ||||||
| jema |
I have moved the little used options from the top and just left a big icon for latest posts and the private message info. | ||||||
| nats |
I now can't get in to the forums at all on my mobile - whereas I could before. I can't get it to log in and can't browse without logging in either. I don't see any boxes. I also can't see what browser I have on my phone it's a Nokia 5220 though so not that unusual..... | ||||||
| jema |
The login links are at the bottom and there should be a toggle top left that will revert it to normal mode anyway. | ||||||
| Hairyloon |
It just gets better & better.
Any chance of getting page numbers at the bottom of the page (preferably as well as at top)? |
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| jema |
Can people also say what sort of phone they are. e.g. screen resolutions, touch screen etc.
Is that better? I am pretty pleased with this, but as I have said the original so called mobile template was sheer pants So I expect there is more to do and want feedback.
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| Bernie66 |
nokia e51, cant find screen resolution. Looks much better now and is a reasonable substitute for normal. | ||||||
| admin |
Don't you find the speed makes it the preferred option? | ||||||
| Bernie66 |
To be honest I am going through wireless lan and this is quicker than the laptop, the only reason to use laptop is for copy and paste and opening more than one browser at a time. This is quick | ||||||
| bagpuss |
On the iPhone with the most recent os in landscape it's great. Lovely and quick | ||||||
| jema |
There is more to be done. For example what should be done with the memberlist in mobile mode? | ||||||
| nats |
fixed it found that google was reformatting it for me when i clicked to view directly it works fab and much better than before back to therapy locked in the loo's when work gets too much on monday then
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| jema |
I downloaded operas mini browser to my Blackberry and the forum does not show so well It is still much better than seeing it in full mode, but between the poorer rendering and the clunkiness of the Opera interface it is a much worse experience.
What I don't get is that people rave about how good mini opera is
It seems to lack a top/bottom short cut, does not let you enter directly into field or navigate bookmarks as easily
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| Bernie66 |
mini opera is poor in my opinion. Very poor- I wouldnt touch it out of choice ever. | ||||||
| jema |
But I see reviews saying how wonderful it is, but I have been persevering with it a bit and still haven't found a single decent feature
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| Bernie66 |
bin it, its over rated and is useless. Google for mobile is light years better in every way | ||||||
| jema |
Just to bump this, I'm hoping to get a new template in that will work better with different screen widths, and also show up PMs better The need for this is emphasised by the fact that Ali pm'd me in the Pub at the Devon do about her fleece that had been left behind, and I only noticed the PM the next day
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| jema |
Okay, does the view new topics button now utilise screen width better? | ||||||
| vegplot |
The track ball on my Blackberry Bold 9000 gave up the ghost over the Christmas break. I rang Orange yesterday and today received a Black Berry Bold 9700 by way of replacement. 10/10 to Orange. However the USB on the Bold is now of a different type (micro USB rather than mini) so now I need a new in-car charger lead
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| Nick |
Give in. Admit they will never actually standardise, and buy a one fits all multi charger unit. I have one, for under a tenner, that allows me to select voltage and polarity and comes with adapters for USB, standard, micro and mini, iPhones, PSP and all brands of mobiles. Saved me many times. | ||||||
| Bernie66 |
does it do blackberry as well-if so which one is it? I struggle to find one that does all inc BB | ||||||
| jema |
Blimey, I thought Blackberries were meant to be pretty damn solid on the build quality
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| vegplot |
The track ball appears to have been a bit of a disaster. Loads of returns said the Mr Tango. |
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| Hairyloon |
Coming back a point, was it difficult to set the forum up for mobiles?
Now that you've sorted out the teething troubles, it is definitely better: I'm minded to try and persuade other fora I use to do likewise. |
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| jema |
"All" it needed was a way of forcing a forum to spot a mobile and selecting a different template when it did.
Trivial in phpbb2, not so trivial in phpbb3 (but doable/done). |