Ok, so we have a new look...

[Firemonkey]

Now who wants a native iphone/ipad interface?

A couple of my other forums have a native iphone app, and it is sweet to be able to not only navigate, and browse the forum, but also post including images directly from the device. How cool would it be to snap a picture of that perfect wisp of blue smoke, using the phone that is already in your pocket, rather than going to grab a camera, and then shuffle the image to the computer first?

I know there are a few extensions that can be added to this forum (phpBB) that make all of this possible. Tapatalk and Forum Runner are both free extensions for the forum owner to install. They aggregate all of your (supported) forums into the app. The free version doesn't allow posting, while the $2-3 paid version does. If you are interested, you can see an example of a well done forum app at wranglerforum.com.

So here is the question;

Anyone else interested in native iphone support?

Anyone know of any other plug-ins that work well?

Any other ideas?

There is a video review of Tapatalk on the TiPB:

http://www.tipb.com/2010/09/28/tapatalk ... pp-review/

[jdbower]

Re: Ok, so we have a new look...

For those who don't kneel before the Altar of Jobs, Tapatalk also handles smartphones including world market leader Nokia, US market leader Blackberry, and of course world and US sales leader Android.

Personally I've found most forums to work fine under the stock browser, but maybe I'll give Tapatalk a try to see if it buys me anything.

[Firemonkey]

Re: Ok, so we have a new look...

I hate the apple culture, despise iTunes Which makes it impossible to manage a 100gb music library across several family members and multiple iDevices, too. But without opening pandoras box, you have to admit that apple has solved many problems by having a single form factor to develop apps against. Android is facing the fragmentation problem more and more each day.

Now, nokia? Really? You think they are still relevant!? Not in (what's left of) America!

See, I'm standing over my grill cooking right now, and would be cool to snap a pic and upload it...just like I can in twitter, or facebook, email or any other similar program.

[jdbower]

Re: Ok, so we have a new look...

Apple does have a habit of abandoning people with old tech, which makes it nice in that there are only a few form factors that need to be developed for (if you've got an iPhone 3-series you're pretty much out of luck now that the 4 has a higher resolution). Luckily fragmentation on the Android platform is mostly FUD and every vendor deals with it. Want to design something that runs on an iPhone 4 and an iPhone 3GS? You need to use relative graphics and the intersection of iPhone OS features available on each platform. Android has dozens of form factors and a lot more experimentation, but realistically hardware fragmentation is a minor problem, OS fragmentation is the same for every platform as it matures, and marketplace fragmentation is really more about choice than anything else. Where Android needs to really draw the line are manufacturers like HTC who heavily integrate their SenseUI to the point where a lot of the customizations just don't work - they're essentially replicating the iPhone model of our way or the highway.

Nokia isn't relevant in the US because they never bought into the carrier-subsidized model - it's hard to compete with a $200 smartphone with a two year contract when you're selling a $600 phone without a monthly discount. They're burning marketshare quickly, but worldwide Symbian is still the #1 deployed smartphone OS. And they're in Tapatalk's support list so I had to remind the followers of the man in black that the iPhone isn't as relevant as a company with zero US marketshare

As for the Tapatalk functionality, playing with it briefly I kind of like the Favorites function. As for snapping pics and uploading, I can sort of see that being useful but I also question whether the editing interface is reasonable enough for a decent-sized post where I'd want to include pics. Then again I'm fine with uploading to a third party using something like this and then pasting the URL in manually.

[DennisLinkletter]

Re: Ok, so we have a new look...

Once we work out which apps are best for the different operating systems, we can put them all up.

Although I bleed Mac.. I don't have an iPhone because I want/need a qwerty keyboard in a work phone.

Now that I have an Ipad, I'm using my HTC for more of my on the road, in the car online work.. I just googled sending sms/text messages from my ipad and it looks like this might now be possible.. http://goo.gl/JEoo

so I might not need qwerty on my phone now..

[cruzmisl]

Re: Ok, so we have a new look...

I don't know about all this app stuff since I have a blackberry and we seem to be at the end of the list for all this cool stuff. Either way though I like the new forum.

[Syzygies]

"Unread" for lurkers

So Laurie notices that without a login, she can't see "unread" messages. Easy enough to create a login for her, but this isn't about fair, it's about selling as many Komodos as possible. Shouldn't it be possible for lurkers to be able to track unread messages without creating a login? You truly want to encourage lurkers, they eventually turn into customers.

[DennisLinkletter]

Re: "Unread" for lurkers

So Laurie notices that without a login' date=' she can't see "unread" messages. Easy enough to create a login for her, but this isn't about fair, it's about selling as many Komodos as possible. Shouldn't it be possible for lurkers to be able to track unread messages without creating a login? You truly want to encourage lurkers, they eventually turn into customers.[/quote']

Love to but I don't think that's do-able.. the forum tracks what each user has read after they login.

It would have to save and create accounts to track every IP that visited..

Lurkers can see/use the recent topics to stay current.

[Conodo12]

Re: Ok, so we have a new look...

Best Browser for Windows Mobile?

All, just curious to hear what you folks are using for your mobile viewing of the new forum? I prefer Opera but when the forum comes up, the page is skewed to the left. To be more clear, when I view this page, it is as if someone is holding a piece of paper up to the screen blocking the page vertically so everything to the left of the "Ko" in Komodo is not viewable. This happens in Opera Mobile 10 for a Windows mobile device running 6.5. This is in full screen mode. It is worse using Opera Mini. Half the screen is not viewable using full screen mode! Internet Explorer works a bit better but is dog slow. Any reason why this page would appear skewed to the left using the Opera mobile browsers in full screen mode? Thus far, this is the only page that I have noticed this behavior. Thanks.

For those curious, I have a Tilt 2 from HTC running Windows Mobile 6.5. Also, I have NO desire to start a flame war. If you love your Blackberry, iPhone, Symbian, etc. Good for you! Show your love in another forum, I just want to see what is happening with the display on this particular page using Opera mobile for windows. Thanks again!

[DennisLinkletter]

Re: Ok, so we have a new look...

Best Browser for Windows Mobile? it is as if someone is holding a piece of paper up to the screen blocking the page vertically so everything to the left of the "Ko" in Komodo is not viewable.

HiLo Wayne..

When I'm too lazy to find or just can't find my reading glasses I often just zoom in on the window in my browser which results in the same loosing everything to the left of "Ko" and the screen can't be adjusted to the left to view it.

I'm sure this is correctable..

Thanks for the heads up..

[jdbower]

Re: Ok, so we have a new look...

Hmmm... WinMo is about the only major platform not supported by Tapatalk, IIRC. It's doubtful they'd add 6.5 since WP7 is a major update to the OS.

That said, my stock (Webkit-based) browser on Android shows a similar behavior of killing the leftmost side of the forum. I haven't tried any of the other browsers at my disposal nor any settings to try to fix it.

[Conodo12]

Re: Ok, so we have a new look...

It appears that we are on an island...

Thanks for looking into the viewing of the web page. I know I commented about the mobile browser issue, but I was able to recreate the zoom scenario that Dennis described in his post too.

As for being on an island - What I am referring to is that once you navigate your way to the forum, you are pretty much stuck here (not that it's a bad thing ) However, I think we want to ensure that folks can get back to the KomodoKamado.com home page, right? In our last forum, if you clicked on the Komodo Kamado banner at the top of the page, it took you back to the KomodoKamado.com home page. I believe we should do the same here.

Thanks!

[Conodo12]

Re: Ok, so we have a new look...

Best Browser for Windows Mobile? it is as if someone is holding a piece of paper up to the screen blocking the page vertically so everything to the left of the "Ko" in Komodo is not viewable.

HiLo Wayne..

When I'm too lazy to find or just can't find my reading glasses I often just zoom in on the window in my browser which results in the same loosing everything to the left of "Ko" and the screen can't be adjusted to the left to view it.

I'm sure this is correctable..

Thanks for the heads up..

Any word on the Komodo Forum being skewed to the left in the browser window? I see that the banner at the top of the forum takes us back to the KK website now, that's good! Thanks!

[Amphoran]

Re: Ok, so we have a new look...

OK, so I log on this morning with my plain vanilla IE 8, and the forum is almost completely off the screen to the right.

What was changed?

[Duk]

Re: Ok, so we have a new look...

same here on my desk top

[Conodo12]

Re: Ok, so we have a new look...

Here are my experiences with viewing the forum web page:

1) Desktop, Windows 7, Mozilla Firefox version 3.6.10 - page looks perfectly centered (always has so no change here)

2) Desktop, Windows 7, IE9 (both 64-bit and 32 bit versions) - page is presented on far right of the screen with some of the page not immediately viewable. However, the horizontal scroll bar on the bottom of the page allows you to correct this and make the entire page viewable. Final viewing position is to the right but all of the page is viewable.

3) Windows Mobile Phone 6.5, Opera Mini 5.1 Browser - page is finally viewable in its entirety!

4) Windows Mobile Phone 6.5, Opera Mobile 10 Browser - page is finally viewable in its entirety!

5) Windows Mobile Phone 6.5, IE 6 Mobile Browser - page is presented to far right but is viewable in its entirety by simply scrolling the page towards the left.

6) Desktop, MAC OS X version 10.6.4, Safari Browser version 5.0.2 - page looks perfectly centered.

So there you have it in the order that I tested. The bottom line here, IMHO, is that the KK forum is now viewable in every browser version I tested in its entirety. Now Dennis can feel confident that any person that surfs to this forum will be able to view it. I don't know enough about web authoring to know if the page can be formatted in a way that would allow it to be centered in all browsers. For now, it is great just to be able to view the page in its entirety regardless of what browser is being used! Thank You!

[jdbower]

Re: Ok, so we have a new look...

You can add Chrome under Linux (Ubuntu Maverick 32-bit and 64-bit) as well as the stock Android 2.2 browser. I also tried out SkyFire and Dolphin browsers under Android without issue. It also works OK using Lynx under Linux, but the graphics aren't showing up

[Amphoran]

Re: Ok, so we have a new look...

having to re-drag the slider for EVERY SINGLE PAGE viewed is a major drag. If fixing it so it works right for phones screws it up for the largest installed browser base in the world, screw the phones. I wouldn't send anybody to a site where I have to tell them - "oh, by the way, you have to change your browser to read it properly".

[Conodo12]

Re: Ok, so we have a new look...

having to re-drag the slider for EVERY SINGLE PAGE viewed is a major drag. If "fixing" it so it works right for phones screws it up for the largest installed browser base in the world' date=' screw the phones. I wouldn't send anybody to a site where I have to tell them - "oh, by the way, you have to change your browser to read it properly".[/quote']

This post was interesting to me as I can empathize with Amphoran (sorry, don't have your real name). MY PC has a fairly high resolution providing a wide viewing angle at 1920 x 1200. I surfed to this forum this morning using IE 8 on my PC. Interestingly, the forum is off to the right but all of it is viewable using the above resolution (or higher). Now I wanted to see what the forum looked like on a "typical" PC resolution so I went to my wife's PC where the resolution is set to 1280 x 800. Using IE 8 at this resolution, I would guess that at least 25% to 30% of the screen is off the page to the far right. This would be bothersome. I then changed her screen resolution to 1024 x 768 and viewed the forum. Ugh, a full 50% of the page is missing off to the right. Fortunately, it can be viewed by scrolling the horizontal bar but for heavy users and contributors of this forum, it would be very tough to take on a day to day basis!

So, I noticed one other item in my testing. When I was testing with IE 8; regardless of the resolution that I set the screen, when I surfed to the regular KK.com website (not the forum but Dennis's actual www.komodokamado.com) the website is always perfectly centered. I find this to be the case regardless of what browser I use and whether I am viewing on a desktop or mobile phone. Now if we can get www.komodokamado.com centered regardless of the platform used to view it, shouldn't we be able to do the same with the forum? Copy the settings maybe? By the by, notice how I say "we" when I won't be doing a thing but typing my observations! :lol:

In all seriousness, this should be addressed and I am sure it will be. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

[slu]

Re: Ok, so we have a new look...

It didn't display like this until about 2 days ago. Not sure what happened, but the ship is surely listing to starboard!