LFGSS Mobile Theme Development

have you had your morning coffee yet?

i just meant if you are making changes to the mobile site, not an iphone specific thing. if you make changes to the mobile site and want to make sure it is not broken on the iphone i could help.

never mind.

The theme will need redesigning from the ground up, to make it look anything like the mockups and to give it the feel of an iPhone app would require quite a bit of work. Nearly everyone who works with web stuff has to work in tight iterative cycles because the lack of great consistency between browsers means that just because you've done something according to the standards you don't necessarily know how it will come out.

So to work on it, the person (if me) would need access to an iPhone for quite a while for continuous testing.

If you have a mac and have installed XCode from the OS CD you can download an iPhone dev kit from apple which includes an iPhone simulator

I'd be happy to beta test. I'm a web dev by profession, but I'm simply too busy with work to be able to code the thing. Shame cos I would like to get into iPhone development.

Nevertheless, if the forum can generate RSS or other XML feeds of the forums, posts, search results etc, the actual task of putting together the app may not be that difficult.

Well yeah, that's the easy one to mock up.

Also, don't you want any of the thread details? Like who posted last, and the time it was last updated? And where would the arrow take you? The last post or the first? And how would pagination of 1,000 pages of a thread look (think of the Bike Porn thread)?

Show me what a thread itself looks like (list of posts).

Also show me the search page (bear in mind you can search multiple things).

I'll be getting an android phone in a couple of months so will likely make something then, but if you want something iPhone tailored someone with an iPhone is going to have to be involved at some level... I won't even be able to see what it looks like.

I'm afraid my revolution of the forums mobile appearance on the iphone is in it infancy (ie that's it). You can certainly add smaller text underneath lists:

http://mekentosj.com/images/papers/feature_iphone_list.jpg

... which would help with who posted, time etc and the actual display of threads would have to be in a different format. You can also have the bar at the bottom to allow posting, user cp, om's and other links.

Nevertheless, if the forum can generate RSS or other XML feeds of the forums, posts, search results etc, the actual task of putting together the app may not be that difficult.

Very true. In fact, there's several apps that would already work really well. Is there a way to make individual RSS feeds for threads?

If you have a mac and have installed XCode from the OS CD you can download an iPhone dev kit from apple which includes an iPhone simulator

I'd be happy to beta test. I'm a web dev by profession, but I'm simply too busy with work to be able to code the thing. Shame cos I would like to get into iPhone development.

I wouldn't make an iPhone app... it seems like a dumb idea, why go through the pain of the app store, just to find you want to make a change but now can't... it prevents improvements and offers no benefit over just having a website tuned for the iPhone.

As for the SDK, I have no Mac at all. I have lots of Windows Server 2008 boxes, and a Windows Server 2008 laptop or two, and quite a few (about 10) machines with Ubuntu Server (command line only) on them... but no Mac hardware and no hacked Mac software anywhere. Shit, I don't even have iTunes.

So the only way I could work on the theme and tune it to an iPhone is to acquire the use of an iPhone for however long it takes me to do it.

Very true. In fact, there's several apps that would already work really well. Is there a way to make individual RSS feeds for threads?

This exists... check the RSS discovery within every page:
Every page has the global RSS.
Every forum page has global RSS and forum RSS.
Every thread page has global RSS and forum RSS and thread RSS.

However the scope differs, only the thread RSS offers posts, and it only offers most recent, so if it's a fast-moving thread you cannot go back in time.

The forum and global RSS are thread based, and only offer recent threads... no stickies and the global one doesn't give you the categories.

Basically they're good for seeing new threads, and new posts within specific threads, but that's it.

The existing mobile skin gives you PM access (so login and logout is implicit), search, categories, threads and posts. That should be the minimum that should be offered in a mobile website, so the use of RSS isn't enough to deliver a decent user story.

The way to do this is definitely to make a better skin, and it's not too hard either... but it takes time and it takes testing. I am unable to test without a phone, and certainly without a rapid testing capability I'm not going to give up time either as what would be a log(n) problem would be a log(2n) problem... it would take ages.

The theme will need redesigning from the ground up, to make it look anything like the mockups and to give it the feel of an iPhone app would require quite a bit of work. Nearly everyone who works with web stuff has to work in tight iterative cycles because the lack of great consistency between browsers means that just because you've done something according to the standards you don't necessarily know how it will come out.

So to work on it, the person (if me) would need access to an iPhone for quite a while for continuous testing.

the iphone SDK which you need to make apps comes with a virtual iphone that runs on you desktop to check changes in real time i beleive...

the iphone SDK which you need to make apps comes with a virtual iphone that runs on you desktop to check changes in real time i beleive...

If you already own a Mac, as the SDK only runs on a Mac.

could the title of the thread be changed to LFGSS Mobile browser development

cheers

good call, max

I'll only put effort into a generic web theme that is optimised for whatever phone I happen to own, which at the moment is an old blackberry and in the future is likely to be an Android thing.

I knew I should have bought an Android phone instead of an iPhone! Doh!

If this forum is either phpBB or VBulletin then an app already exists, Tapatalk, however I have a feeling it's not.

except iPhone, Android or BlackBerry....

are you totally inept? the blackberry is entirely java, and can run any java code that's been compiled to be cod, and anyone can do it with the blackberry SDK. android can run JAD's as far as i know, and there must be an SDK for the iPhone for java ports.

that being said, java sucks.

are you totally inept? the blackberry is entirely java, and can run any java code that's been compiled to be cod, and anyone can do it with the blackberry SDK. android can run JAD's as far as i know, and there must be an SDK for the iPhone for java ports.
that being said, java sucks.

Read it again. Java APPLET != Javascript or Java
Blackberry only supports javascript

As for iClones.. Apple says No, Sun says we'll try..
http://gizmodo.com/365633/sun-to-bring-java-to-the-iphone-via-the-sdk

No applets for Android
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2008735/is-it-possible-to-run-java-applets-in-the-android-webkit-browser

s/Sun/Oracle/z ;)

I'm terribly sorry, mr badtmy.

Fixed.

blind dan by name, blind dan by nature?

We await your apology.

no apology needed: note my OP said "ported". yes, ported. would you like a definition?

what annoys me is, the 'mark all as read' is too close to other stuff, a few times I've clicked it by accident and it's quite irritating

but I can't do anything about it so I'm not going to complain

I would like to know where it says "ported", yes "ported".

Comment #44 seems to be the first mention of it, hippy.

Blackberry app would be better. Or just a **portable ** java applet that any platform can run.

.........

portable != ported

I can do the definition for you if you'd like?

portable, as in, has the ability to be ported. often used by dev nerds.

sorry if you misinterpreted my usage of the word.