Mobile Forums?

[Mike129]

Some discussion boards like this are starting to include a "mobile" interface optimized for use with PDAs and Smart Phones, as these devices grow in popularity. Any chance of doing that here?



Aside from working well with these devices, the mobile forums are usually light on fancy layouts and graphics, so they tend to be a better interface for those of us with low bandwidth connections.



Thanks,

--Mike

 

[Headshot zod]

I would love to be able to get the forums here on my pocket pc. There would have to substantial interest though. I tried to start a biodiesel forum and even though there are quite a few postings it wasn't enough to get that going.

 

[Mike129]

I would love to be able to get the forums here on my pocket pc. There would have to substantial interest though. I tried to start a biodiesel forum and even though there are quite a few postings it wasn't enough to get that going.

Well, this would just be an alternative interface to the existing Forums, not new forums, so you would have plenty of content (or perhaps I do not understand your point).



Also, vBulletin, the provider of the Discussion Forum software, actually does support the Mobile Forum capability, it just doesn't seem to be turned on here. For an example of this software in use, see:

Normal view -- http://discussion.treocentral.com/index.php?styleid=1

Mobile view -- http://treo.discussion.treocentral.com/index.php?styleid=12



--Mike

 

[Headshot zod]

I understand the alternative interface. I was just stating there might not be enough need to justify it and gave a small example of what I ran into on something completely minor. We could poll to see who has PDA's and maybe move from there.

 

[Mike129]

I understand the alternative interface. I was just stating there might not be enough need to justify it and gave a small example of what I ran into on something completely minor. We could poll to see who has PDA's and maybe move from there.

Okay. I just assumed since the VBulletin software already supports this functionality that enabling it would be relatively easy, but I assume you are saying it is somewhat complicated (which shouldn't surprise me).



A poll is a good idea, but I would ask about anyone that wants access from a screen limited device or anyone that has a very slow internet connection. (I have both, for instance. ) How do we do such a thing and ensure a reasonable number of folks see it?



Thanks!

--Mike

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

This is something that I'm looking at doing - at least for those with slow bandwidth connections. It will be pretty hard to do it for PDA's because of the screen limitations but I'll look at it. There is already an option that does some of this although you can't post directly on it. Go to the bottom of any of the forums screen and click on archive. There you will get an almost raw text version of the forums except that it has the top and left side menus of the main index page. Although it says archive it is real time and has every post that the forums have in them - it just doesn't have any of the forum menus. That function allows most of the web crawlers to crawl the forums and lots of people come to the site through there (most of them won't crawl forums pages and this tricks them to do so) which is why I have the menus on there. I will be using and expanding that format for low bandwidth use. You can use that for for quicker loading pages and when you are ready to post click on the "(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)" link near the top and that will take you to the full page so you can make your reply and then click on the back button to take you back to the trimmed down pages.

 

[Mike129]

This is something that I'm looking at doing - at least for those with slow bandwidth connections.

Great!

It will be pretty hard to do it for PDA's because of the screen limitations but I'll look at it.

If you have time, take a look at the VBulletin example I posted above. That mobile forum work great on most PDAs. Actually, since this is mostly all text, it almost works as is. There is just a lot of bits to download and a lot of stuff to scroll past in the left side menu/nav bar

There is already an option that does some of this although you can't post directly on it. Go to the bottom of any of the forums screen and click on archive. There you will get an almost raw text version of the forums except that it has the top and left side menus of the main index page. Although it says archive it is real time and has every post that the forums have in them - it just doesn't have any of the forum menus. That function allows most of the web crawlers to crawl the forums and lots of people come to the site through there (most of them won't crawl forums pages and this tricks them to do so) which is why I have the menus on there. I will be using and expanding that format for low bandwidth use. You can use that for for quicker loading pages and when you are ready to post click on the "(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)" link near the top and that will take you to the full page so you can make your reply and then click on the back button to take you back to the trimmed down pages.

Right you are! Except for the left side menu this works great on my PDA. (I just never thought to look there. )



Thanks, Steve!!

--Mike

 

[Mike129]

There is already an option that does some of this although you can't post directly on it.

Right you are! Except for the left side menu this works great on my PDA. (I just never thought to look there. )

Oh, a search feature would be good to have there as well. Good, but not absolutely necessary.



Thanks, again!

--Mike

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

I did take a look at it. That isn't a built in feature of vB that's a custom skin that they did for it - which is a MAJOR job. I'll keep it in my sights.

 

[Mike129]

I did take a look at it. That isn't a built in feature of vB that's a custom skin that they did for it - which is a MAJOR job. I'll keep it in my sights.

Okay, I understand. Sorry; I didn't realize what I was asking for.



Thanks,

--Mike

 

[Dieselnutz]

I would love to be able to take this stuff with me on the PDA! I tried to with Avantgo but it doesn't work.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

You'd have one heck of a time downloading it to take it with you on the road with a pda - there's a TON of data here. Just the raw text of the post and thread data is 520Mb. All of the data in the forums (not including any pictures) comes up to 1. 5 Gb. I was thinking more along the lines of viewing it live on a PDA where you have wireless access.

 

[R-N-R]

Steve, I am using a Blackberry these days, please throw my name in the hat as a tester if you get to that point.

 

[Mike129]

You'd have one heck of a time downloading it to take it with you on the road with a pda - there's a TON of data here. Just the raw text of the post and thread data is 520Mb. All of the data in the forums (not including any pictures) comes up to 1. 5 Gb. I was thinking more along the lines of viewing it live on a PDA where you have wireless access.

Agreed. I think this is only going to work reasonably if you have an active 'net connection of some sort.



--Mike