Mobile version of the forum?

[EaglePrince 234]

Hi, I just meant to ask if there is an easy way to bring Stronghold Nation to mobile? That is, to make a mobile version of the forum, or perhaps to see if it can be visited by some of those applications for forums. We could see if we can visit SHN with some applications for Android, or Windows Phone/Mobile, or iOS. :) This may be great thing for some of us. I am going to try some of those applications tomorrow, but I decided to ask here a question about it. Has anyone else tried something like that?

 

Oh, and I know I could set the browser to view everything in single column, but it would be great if we could get more than that. :)

[Lord_Chris 270]

You can visit the site on a mobile, and it adjusts fairly well - however, it isn't perfect and I'm sure there will be some devices that can view it better than others. If you choose 'pantherone' as your style then it is fully responsive.

[EaglePrince 234]

I tried it now, and it displays great if I choose pantherone, but when I go to read posts all letters are almost white. The same happens on Edge (on windows 10 mobile) and on Opera Mini (same platform). I may try it with Android later this day, and if you might want to see it I would show you screenshots. I made them, but they are on the phone. I would post them later. :)

 

By the way, is it possible to edit pantherone so it would use similar color schemes as this default one? I don't want to bring you additional work though, this one works well, and I read everything in desktop version, and I am indeed able to have it all in a single column. It could look somewhat better, but that is not necessary at all. :)

[Lord_Chris 270]

No, you can't edit styles, you can only choose styles that are available. I look forward to seeing some of those screenshots. :)

[EaglePrince 234]

Hi! Here are the screenshots. These were made while using "pantherone" theme. For some reason letters go white... I have seen similar problem on Edge (on mobile) when I try to switch to reading view, then letters also remain white while having white background. Only when it comes to that thing with reading view on Edge, it could be possible that it's because of Edge.

 

Also, I wasn't able to see how it works on Android, I came home pretty late, and I wasn't able to play around with my moms phone. :)

 

 

The right one is from Edge, and the left one is from Opera Mobile, both with default settings (not reading view) and with "pantherone".

Edited February 18, 2016 by EaglePrince

[Lord_Chris 270]

That's the font colour of the text @Crusader1307 used. :)

Edited February 19, 2016 by Lord_Chris

[EaglePrince 234]

Oh... :) Well, it is possible that I just went straight to his tread to test it and that I haven't see that it actually looks differently on other treads. On the other hand, if his tread doesn't look good, then nothing else matters. :D

[EaglePrince 234]

Hey, me again about this... :D I just meant to ask if it is possible to add another theme such as pantherone, only darker? I mean, if that can be done easily, of course? The only downside of pantherone is that its background is white and letters are black contrary to this one, while people here - when we write we care about this default darker theme? Then Crusader's History tread would be more easily read from mobile. :)

[Lord_Chris 270]

At the moment there's only the two themes. We're working on creating more, but it won't be done for some time yet.

[EaglePrince 234]

That's great to hear, thanks! :) Also no need to hurry or something like that, I was just curious about that matter, and I wanted to suggest that it may be better if some new theme would be also dark like this one. I myself, just like every other member, am grateful for what you do here.

[EaglePrince 234]

We were speaking in the thread for the new Stronghold about mobile-friendliness of the forum, and about Tapatalk. Chris replied me there, and as he suggested, I decided to continue the conversation in a more appropriate thread.

 

Firstly, yes, I completely agree that having a single app for us would not be the best for us. It's costly, like Chris said, plus even when it's done, it would need to be maintained... So we would just make things more expensive, and not that practical. Having to maintain at least two apps beside taking care of the website.

 

That is what something like Tapatalk might be a good solution. In this case we would need to install a plug-in on our forum thanks to which people would be able to visit the forum through the app. This way the forum itself is not being hosted elsewhere. However, yes, I assume Chris is right that entire traffic would at least go through another server as well - at least for those users using the app.

 

Another thing we were discussing before is that not all forums supported.

 

But that would lead us to another possible conclusion. Maybe we could migrate the entire forum - to use another "engine" (or platform, I'm not sure what is the right term). It might be possible, for example, I have seen that many free blog platforms have the option to migrate everything from another platform into it. Maybe some modern forum templates/platforms would allow us to migrate the forum into it - and get mobile-friendliness. Maybe this would be a more practical way? To pick a platform which would give us more modern designs on its own, and possibly offer us done app of their own - if not Tapatalk, maybe something else.

 

Tapatalk surely isn't perfect, there are things I don't like about it. For instance, within the app there are many ads, and for a user to remove the ads it's too costly in my option. It's something they would want to charge annually, though there is an option for the forum owner to pay to get rid of these ads for their visitor. And another downside is that the money from these ads go only to Tapatalk I think, though I'm not sure about that, and the owner of the website would loose even those few bucks from those discreet ads on the forum itself.

[Lord_Chris 270]

I don't really see the benefit right now of immediately "rushing" into Tapatalk, I'm afraid. I just can't see it having any long-term impact on the success of the forum. Perhaps at some point in the future we will make a plugin for the forum for Tapatalk, but it's likely to be a custom thing for all forums and not just SHN. But for now we're busy focussing on the new release.

 

As far as switching forum software goes, this is not really something I feel comfortable with. For one I don't really see any benefit of making such a move, but also because it would simply be requiring a lot of time and effort to migrate the whole website over (as that's what it would take) simply for the case of a mobile friendly style. The only forum I would consider is Invision Power, the commercial software, yet it would still need to be migrated into the site and I just don't have the time to do it. I honestly don't see the benefit, I am sorry.

[EaglePrince 234]

Invision Power seems to be supported by Tapatalk.

https://www.tapatalk.com/download_IPBoard

 

Certainly, I don't wouldn't want to rush into anything either.

 

Regarding switching forum software, I completely understand. I don't know much about it either.

 

The only reason I pointed these out is because you mentioned how we could benefit from new players from Stronghold Warlords, and I think that at this moment most of the people, be it kids or somebody in their twenties or thirties, don't wait to get home to write something on internet, or read - they do it on the phone, in a bus, or whatever. And if we needed to experiment with something, it is easier when there are few of us who know each other, than when some new people start coming by.

 

There are also these errors, such as the one we're having right now when submitting new messages. Maybe it wouldn't happen if the forum software was simply more up-to-date.

 

But most importantly, I don't want to push anything, I'm fine with the forum as it is. :)

[Lord_Chris 270]

I understand :)

 

Regarding the errors, I'm honestly not sure right now what is the reason the errors are occurring, but I will try my best to find it out and fix it soon. It is a strange error.

 

But we are currently updating the forum software anyway, so this is a chance to fix it then.

[EaglePrince 234]

Glad to hear that. :)