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Viewing PA in a mobile(iPhone)-only setting
dplafoll
Registered User new member
Registered User new member
So I'm a long-time PA reader and rare forum reader and new forum user, so I apologize if this topic has been addressed previously or if this thread is misplaced in the forums. I am in a living situation where I do not have broadband internet at home(currently unemployed also), my primary access is through my iPhone, and the forum search doesn't seem to work in Safari(box opens then disappears when you type in it).
I keep up with the site normally through an RSS reader(which still requires viewing the newspost as a website), but I decided to go back and re-read the archives(again) for the hell of it for the first time using my phone. My question is if there is a better way to read the archives with a mobile browser. My specific issue is when I try to use the navigation buttons on both the old and new sites. They're very small and require the extra step of zooming in and clicking just the right one. To be honest it's a pain to try to navigate, because it's either zooming in every time or manually editing the URL every time. I might sound a bit lazy("it's just some zooming, cry more") but I am wondering if there is or will be a more mobile-friendly version of the site with big buttons and a more compact layout. A lot of sites seem to be adding a mobile version, usually one that switches to it automatically based on your being on a device, and I was hoping it'd be coming to one of the sites that matters most to me.
Also the next comic button is borked from the first comic on old and new sites.
I keep up with the site normally through an RSS reader(which still requires viewing the newspost as a website), but I decided to go back and re-read the archives(again) for the hell of it for the first time using my phone. My question is if there is a better way to read the archives with a mobile browser. My specific issue is when I try to use the navigation buttons on both the old and new sites. They're very small and require the extra step of zooming in and clicking just the right one. To be honest it's a pain to try to navigate, because it's either zooming in every time or manually editing the URL every time. I might sound a bit lazy("it's just some zooming, cry more") but I am wondering if there is or will be a more mobile-friendly version of the site with big buttons and a more compact layout. A lot of sites seem to be adding a mobile version, usually one that switches to it automatically based on your being on a device, and I was hoping it'd be coming to one of the sites that matters most to me.
Also the next comic button is borked from the first comic on old and new sites.
dplafoll on
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I'd put it in the "nice to have" list. I can personally get by on my phone, but an optimized site would be great. That of course means sifting through the forums code some more, which I would not wish on anyone.
Search still works, but you can't use drop down menu, you need to hold search and you will get the option to open the search menu in a new page, not pretty, but it works.
Satans..... hints.....
EDIT: Alpha, I remember requesting a mobile site a while ago and you saying a similar thing
Scott has an iPhone app for PvP, maybe PA could do something similar?
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
This qualifies for idea of the century. I would LOVE a PA-App... A Papp if you will
The explanation that's come up before when asking for a mobile version of the forums is that the PA forum has a ton of crazy extensions added that would make it a real hassle to work with (Awesome Posts, spoilers, YouTube embedding, etc.). The boards are already super hard to upgrade when vB releases a new version because of this and it would just make it harder. Of course, I'm not an admin (or a forum developer) so I wouldn't take my word on it, but that's the reasoning I remember previously.
Although... vB can spit out an archive version that's text-only, but on PA it appears to be disabled - you could enable it and have a redirect from forums.penny-arcade.com/mobile (or m.forums.penny-arcade.com, or whatever) to http://forums.penny-arcade.com/archive/ if you wanted, but I assume that Alpha has a damn good reason for the archive not being accessible. It's also read-only.
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
I actually put together a custom google penny arcade forums search.
It doesn't do everything the forum search engine can do but I've built in some filters for searching by subforum (become available after initial query). Unfortunately that's the max number of filters allowed so I can't do anything fancier with it but you can still use all the advanced search operators you can normally use (indeed, the filters are just intitle: searches).
Also it can do searched that are 3 characters or less and doesn't have a timer limit, which is nice.
It's a terrible URL so if it's useful I might host it on a domain. Would mean I could maybe host a few CSEs on the same page and try to tweak them for different search types eg post author etc.
Holy shit
You're awesome.
To be fair, that might be somewhat chicken-and-egg. Reading the forums (or even the site generally) is rather difficult on mobiles, so few people bother with it.
The forums would of course be the most difficult thing to adapt to mobiles, but I would be happy just to have some kind of PA iPhone app, as others have mentioned.
Pet peeve of mine, but I find it really annoying when websites make apps specific to a particular phone when there's no reason they can't just make their website more mobile-accessible.
Having said that I've never had any trouble using the forums on my phone.