Greetings,

Due to a few requests, I've added a mobile theme to Gimp Chat and need a few members with smart phones to test it out and provide some feedback. It's basically a scaled down interface, with no bells and whistles, but does provide the basic functionality of the forums, while being more suited to smart phone's small screen sizes and limited bandwidth. I don't have a smart phone, only an el cheapo cell will a limited min-browser, so I can't really test.

Being this site is very graphics intensive, it's not well suited for a smart phone, unless you have plenty of bandwidth and no caps on data. This brings up the issue of how to handle large images. The mobile theme currently just scales the image to fit the screen size. I guess that is as good of an approach as any. Otherwise, I'd be into creating physical thumbnails of all embedded images and providing those smaller images to the mobile user. That might be efficient for the mobile device user but would mean lots of overhead on the server side so it's not an option, at this point.

Switching to the mobile theme is currently a manual process. You can select between GimpChat and phpBBmobile in your User Control Panel (UCP) under Board Preferences/Board Style (At this point, you don't even need a mobile phone to preview the theme).

If it's determined having a mobile theme is useful, I have a bit of code that can supposedly detect whether or not you're using a mobile device and will automatically switch to the mobile theme. That will need to be tested as well.

So, please check it out when you get a chance and let me know what you think. I'm open to all suggestions and recommendations..

Thanks!!

First impression, didn't play with it too long. It works fine on a Samsung Galaxy using Opera. I checked out a few pics they scale nicely. Zooming in is good enough for pics. Navigation is OK too.

It will be fine for anyone who just wants to keep up with what's going on.

The mobile theme won't be useful unless there is an automatic switch. Otherwise we will need one id for the regular browser and one for the smartphone.

Looks fine on my nexus. But I would not be browsing gimpchat from my phone.

Is it possible for it to be an "app" so both versions are available without going in and changing the settings?

2-Ton, there is a universal app that supports forums called tapatalk I believe. I never actually got it but would be interested.

The mobile theme looks fantastic on my iPhone Tux.

I had no problem using the same log in info for both.

Until there is a theme auto-switch you id is associated with either the mobile or the fullsize theme, which won't be too usable for the other navigator if you access GC with both while keeping the same id.

Tapatalk is not free, and I only use free apps! I see a few free ones in the apple store, so will check them out.

Well, when I go to GC, I get the full version on my phone right now...so will try out the mobile now.

I guess it's ok, but I prefer the full version. I like to see where there are new posts that I haven't read yet. I know it's small and graphic intensive, but I just make it bigger and scroll around, lol. If I was in an area of low reception, then I think the mobile version would be an advantage.

Of course, there is the intermediate setup, which consists in using your phone as a modem for the PC. Testing that right now, was awfully easy to setup. Connect both with USB, check the right option in the phone (*) and low and behold, you have a new network adapter showing on the PC. At first it looked like speed was blazing fast, but I figured out that my phone was using the house Wifi.. Once this was disabled we are back to web 1.0 speed, but the standard GC theme is still workable. as is.

(*) I purchased the phone on Amazon, so that's the standard issue from the manufacturer, not the lobotomized version available through network operators (where this kind of options is often disabled)

I was using an iPhone and yes, it happened to be at home so it was using our wifi. Some sites automatically detect if you are on mobile, and give you the mobile version whether you want it or not...I like having the choice.

thanks a ton tux I find the mobile version a lot easier to browse once you are into posts but finding the posts you want is much harder. I have always loved the recent posts on this forum and would love to see it integrated with the mobile version otherwise thanks a ton tux


edit: pm area is confusing and hard to navigate and edit button is kind of hard to find. also would like to see support for posting to twitter and fb and so on also I always liked seeing signatures around here so maybe a toggle for them?

Thanks to everyone for the great feedback.

There are several mobile options out there for phpBB but a couple of them are major modifications and I'm not really interested in pursuing those. At this point, I think a mobile friendly style is sufficient. I will continue to investigate all the options out there and try to find additional styles to preview.

I can certainly make modification to the current mobile style to make it more friendly. I guess one issue is that not all mobile devices are created equally but I would prefer to have one style that covers the majority of mobile users.


I've taken a cursory look at the code for auto-detecting whether or not you're on a mobile device and I don't see the ability to easily switch between the styles. The code is written to automatically switch to the mobile style when it detects you are on a mobile device, but I don't see an opt-out feature. I still need to study the code a little more and investigate all of my options. Seems to me, a typical web site would want to auto-detect that you're on a mobile device, while including an opt-out to switch back to the default style. It think it's easier said than done on phpBB and that's why I'm seeing more comprehensive mods that supposedly address the issue. Still, I'm seeing reports of it not working properly across a range of mobile devices.


You can click the "view active topics" link on the mobile theme to see a list of recent posts. None of the custom mods that have been made to the GimpChat style are currently incorporated into the mobile style. I'm certainly open to adding some of the mods into the mobile style, if it makes sense to do so. We just need to keep in mind that many mobile devices are very limited, in terms of performance.

I'll continue to investigate all the options and I'm sure I'll be asking for some help with upcoming testing.

Thanks again for the feedback!

You can also use the Gimp Chat RSS with you mobile reader or make your own Gimp Chat app.
http://www.appyet.com/

Only Android I thing.

I had tried the.RSS feed before and only got new.topics which currently I pick off of twitter. that app maker looks cool but not as free as I was hoping (haven't been able to try it just woke up and on phone still).

thanks for all the hard work tux! the active topics page looks great

tux I can't get spoilers to work in mobile version using opera mini anyone else having the issue?

Spoilers are part of a custom BBcode mod and this point, only the default BBcodes are supported in the mobile theme.