Is the mobile site gone now?

[WinstonWolf]

Bit of hopefully useful feedback, I can't read the site on the mobile any more, the font size will probably prove too small for many readers.

[miniman]

RacingPete said:

The Beta2 skin has been rolled out faster than it should have been to solve an issue with the breakdown of the mobile.pistonheads.com site - we are working as fast as possible to get the fixes out to make it better. It has been in test for 6 months nearly, available in a secret beta test team (made up of users of this forum) and used by some of the team... me included.

The rollout plan is in fast forward, and part of that is to make it the default and single skin for all users.

The whole of PistonHeads is made up of so many disparate parts that we work hard to try and get the various technologies together working well - though it may not look like progress to some, and change for the changes sake, there are proper reasons why we are doing this.

• The forums on mobile.pistonheads.com was the only part of that site left working, and the relationship with the third party is such that no changes can be made on it - that in turn (with the way the technology works by scrapping the live site) means that we need to move away from it, as it limits any changes we can make to the forums.
• Moving to a single supported "skin" in the forums means we can develop on a single view, meaning faster iteration to add features that are long overdue in the forums (e.g. a proper image uploader, better quoting, better recording of where a user has read to, forum search etc)
• Better tools for the moderators of the site on mobile - there are none through the mobile.pistonheads.com site and this means that the forums have better support on mobile for moderators.
• Better integration with the rest of the site so that we can link better My Garages, or Calendar or Classifieds with the forums.
• It also allows us to start to migrate the codebase away from classic ASP.

Thing is, though, there are topics stretching back in to mid-2013 on the topic of the "new" mobile skin.

I'd take you up on the offer of lunch, but I kind of assume we'll all order something and then be told by a Haymarket exec that we can't have the budget for it.

[RacingPete]

miniman said:

Thing is, though, there are topics stretching back in to mid-2013 on the topic of the "new" mobile skin.

I'd take you up on the offer of lunch, but I kind of assume we'll all order something and then be told by a Haymarket exec that we can't have the budget for it.

I will pay, and I am far more generous... so do take up the offer.

[Andyjc86]

Jader1973 said:

Open Pistonheads on your phone (based on a iphone)
Login again because it will have logged you out.
Wait for the "skin" to load.
Select one of the forum drop downs e.g. The Pie & Piston
Select the forum you want e.g. News, Politics & Economics
Select the thread you are interested in e.g. Farage stays on as UKIP leader

At the top of the thread it says " PREV 1 of 32 NEXT"
The "1" is in a white box.
Click the white box.
Delete the 1 and enter the page number you are interested in viewing e.g. 32
Click "Go" - do not click "Done" it doesn't do anything
Wait for page to load


Infinitely simpler than before when all the forums were listed on one page and you selected from the list which then loaded the threads, and you then clicked on the page number of the last page to open it.

Thank you

[eliot]

Funk said:

The reason for the proxy on the tablet is for ad blocking as without it, the internet is a st thing to use.

Was wondering why all the bhing about ads, as I hadnt noticed any. Then i remembered my firewall filters out all adverts and nasties.

Edited by eliot on Tuesday 19th May 23:05

[Baryonyx]

Why is there no one touch function to go straight to the end of a thread? And why not make threads open on their last page?

[rscott]

There was (for about a week!) but it seems to have disappeared when the login system was updated.

[RacingPete]

rscott said:

There was (for about a week!) but it seems to have disappeared when the login system was updated.

Anything in My Stuff goes to the last page you read, the other parts we are adding in an option this week.

[hornetrider]

Pete, thanks for keeping us updated. I'm not actually using Beta2 mobile site at the moment as the desktop is so terrible. I'm concerned however at benjj's post above with the video advert covering most of the screen real estate.

Is this how it's going to be going forward? I did have a guilty pleasure of surfing PH in my tent at Le Mans before I pass out but if there's data intensive advertising all over the site I won't be doing that any more. It also uses up data allowance when out and about not on wifi.

[RacingPete]

hornetrider said:

Pete, thanks for keeping us updated. I'm not actually using Beta2 mobile site at the moment as the desktop is so terrible. I'm concerned however at benjj's post above with the video advert covering most of the screen real estate.

Is this how it's going to be going forward? I did have a guilty pleasure of surfing PH in my tent at Le Mans before I pass out but if there's data intensive advertising all over the site I won't be doing that any more. It also uses up data allowance when out and about not on wifi.

I have been looking at the code this morning to see where that sneaked in. I fully agree with you, and will turn it off this morning and review the ticket that added this code in.

[jammy_basturd]

Is it possible to apply to be part of the beta testing team?

[Moospeed]

Rouleur said:

benjj said:

Idiots.

I'd typed out a couple of paragraphs detailing my feelings about the way the site is being run, but decided that the above word summed them up perfectly.

Of course we're all wasting our time posting in here as no-one gives a toss what we think in spite of the fact that the site wouldn't exist without us posters.

Ha! *SNAP* after a few days of assuming they'd messed up the mobile site and "...it'll be back online soon, I hope..." it wasn't until today that I begrudgingly went to the desktop in desperation to see if the problem was just down to me or my mobile.

Glad to have it back online and usable on the phone again, but will be actively trying to find some adblocker. I don't mind adverts funding the thing but I do mind having most of the screen filled up with bandwidth sucking st.

[RacingPete]

Moospeed said:

Rouleur said:

benjj said:

Idiots.

I'd typed out a couple of paragraphs detailing my feelings about the way the site is being run, but decided that the above word summed them up perfectly.

Of course we're all wasting our time posting in here as no-one gives a toss what we think in spite of the fact that the site wouldn't exist without us posters.

Ha! *SNAP* after a few days of assuming they'd messed up the mobile site and "...it'll be back online soon, I hope..." it wasn't until today that I begrudgingly went to the desktop in desperation to see if the problem was just down to me or my mobile.

Glad to have it back online and usable on the phone again, but will be actively trying to find some adblocker. I don't mind adverts funding the thing but I do mind having most of the screen filled up with bandwidth sucking st.

The offending ad slot has been removed...

[Phil Dicky]

Not working on my phone..is anyone there actually bothered !!!!!!!

[rscott]

Phil Dicky said:

Not working on my phone..is anyone there actually bothered !!!!!!!

Are you trying to use mobile.pistonheads.com - if so ,then that's the problem. It's dead.

Login to www.pistonheads.com, then , in your preferences, change the skin to beta 2.

[RacingPete]

We are working on it and bothered... See any of my posts above.

[Studio117]

Should the forum not just default to the mobile skin once the device type has been established?

Logging in on my phone has always been a pain.

[rscott]

Studio117 said:

Should the forum not just default to the mobile skin once the device type has been established?

Logging in on my phone has always been a pain.

The beta2 skin is a responsive one - displays a bit like big blue on PC, and the new mobile look on smaller devices.

[Moospeed]

RacingPete said:

The offending ad slot has been removed...

Woohoo! Back in action, cheers

[Moospeed]

Moospeed said:

RacingPete said:

The offending ad slot has been removed...

Woohoo! Back in action, cheers

In fact, having been on it for the past half hour I'm actually going to praise it a bit now.

Going to the My Stuff link and the arrow for most recent post actually takes you to the most recent unread post and not to the top of a page where you have to scroll down down down (did I already read that bit) down down down, ah yeah not read this before.

In the space of a few hours I've gone from thinking 'yet another good thing ruined' to 'aha! Something actually improved'

Really there should have been a replacement page on mobile.Pistonheads though to say don't use this, use this link xxx, and automatically update to Beta2 (preferably better named).