Photo.Net not Pocket PC friendly?

[ky2]

I have no idea if any of you (moderators and subscribers alike) tried

to load photo.net into their pocketpc's-- but the Dell Axim 51v which

I happen to have for a few days now, finds photo.net web design to be

completely unusable: the top graphic menu clobbers up the entire

screen, while the forum posts are formatted into narrow, 1-2 character

columns.

 

Are there any plans of formatting photo.net into a more friendly

layout? Mind you, this pocket pc has VGA resolution and fast wireless

internet; it's perfectly capable of rendering Yahoo, CNN, Ebay, and

the like.

[mottershead]

I didn't know it didn't work on PocketPC's, but it doesn't surprise me, or particular bother me, and I don't see us doing anything about it in the immediate future.

[ky2]

Brian, it's completely screwed up on PocketPC, for now apparent reason. I guess my real question is: when are we going to upgrade our menu system to something more modern?

[mottershead]

The menus are as modern as you can get. Completely CSS-based, with the exception of about 5 lines of Javascript that are needed on IE to overcome a point of standards non-compliance. How are the menus not modern? As you see, the menus and the layout work fine on numerous other browsers, including all the browsers and platforms that represent 95% or more of our visitors. I'm not going to re-design the site, or stand on my head working around quirks, so that the design works on your PocketPC. I wouldn't do it even if I had a PocketPC, which I don't.

 

If your PocketPC isn't working on the site, it is because the browser you are using is not sufficiently standards-compliant. So, when are you going to get a portable device with a standards-compliant web browser?

[oceanphysics]

You can turn off the menus with an option in your workspace, though I guess that doesn't help with the formatting.

[kai_griffin]

So VGA resolution is "more modern"? You've only had your PPC for a few days, Yaron, but just wait until you find out how many other sites are also completely unusable in that form factor. It's a neato-mosquito little device to have - for all kinds of reasons - but it's not exactly a web-surfer's paradise :-)

[ky2]

<i>"If your PocketPC isn't working on the site, it is because the browser you are using is not sufficiently standards-compliant. So, when are you going to get a portable device with a standards-compliant web browser?"</i>

<br><br>

I love these kinds of comments. When my support team does this, I make sure they get penalized (and they do). Naturally, I don't blaim you, Brian, or anyone else-- afterall, you do all of this on a completely voluntary basis.<br><Br>

HOWEVER, if much more complex webpages load-- and render-- beautifully (and please, spare me the technicalities, I was webmaster myself for 6.5 years), then photo.net's should load.<br><Br>

Per the VGA-request-- we've been limiting our uploads to be 511 pixels wide, and yet-- we cram our pages with a lot of data that contributes nil; all I want is to see the text posted on the forums.

[ky2]

Ocean, thanks for the tip-- i'll try it out.

 

Kai-- obviously it's only gadget, and not really mine to keep. But after I saw the little thing handle all my other frequently-visited websites with great ease and elegance, I was more than disappointed to see how my favorite website loads.

[mottershead]

Spare you the technicalities? If you were a webmaster, then you know that Yahoo, etc, load because (a) they use old-style HTML -- table-based layout, etc, which is a nightmare to maintain; (b) they have QA labs full of oddball stuff on which to test, and lots of people to test it; and © lots of people to write browser-detection code, and workaround browser quirks.

 

photo.net has been moving towards standard-based HTML/CSS layout and design for the last two years. The design aims to work on standards-compliant browsers, plus IE 6. We don't care about anything else. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, too bad. We would have this attitude about IE 6, too, but we can't afford to because of its dominant market position, which (thankfully) is weakening. So we spend time working around IE 6 bugs and standards non-conformity. That is all the working around of browser nonsense that we have time for or care to do.

 

There are many areas where we have not rewritten the code to generate standards-based HTML. But we aren't going to go backwards so that it will work on MS Pocket Explorer. If the site design works on MSIE 6, Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, Konquerer, Safari, etc, etc, and doesn't work on Pocket Explorer, too bad for Pocket Explorer. The site design works, actually, in IE 5.5, although that browser population has shrunk to the point where I'm starting not to care about whether something works on it. Pocket Explorer is comparable to IE 4. The site design doesn't work on IE 4, either. Tough.

 

If you care about this, then insist that your pocket device manufacturer provide a modern HTML browser -- not 8+ years old technology. It is not the duty of every webmaster on the planet to cater to whatever anyone wants to call a browser. The time for that is past.

[michaelkh]

"I love these kinds of comments. When my support team does this, I make sure they get

penalized (and they do). "

 

Pardon me if I say I would not like to work for you. Brian's site design is decent, works

perfectly in most browsers, and is moving away from hacks and quirks and extra effort

towards a standards core that will make it _easier_ to support devices, not harder.

 

Can I suggest you look at putting Opera on your PDA?

[ky2]

Brian, im not pushing you forward to another platform-- i'm just asking if you have ever considered stripping down the website to a minimal design-- afterall, you don't have flash menus or anything that's too complicated. It will load faster. Oh well.

 

Michael, thanks for the tip-- i'm sure to give Opera a try.

[tholte]

Yaron, "i'm just asking if you have ever considered stripping down the website to a minimal design" Just so it works nicely on your pocket PC? I thought I had heard and seen it all in my three years here on PN. Nope!

[bernhard]

Yaron said: "all I want is to see the text posted on the forums."

 

How about trying the RSS feeds for the forums with a Newsfeed reader?

 

To Brian:

We all understand why you can't support every oddball browser on the planet, but is it really necessary that you come across so unfriendly? After all photo.net puts the bread on your family's table doesn't it?

[mottershead]

Hi, Bernhard. I guess I was a little provoked by the implication that because it didn't work correctly on Pocket Explorer, photo.net's design was not "modern" and that it needed a more "friendly " layout -- when the problem is that Yaron is using a browser that is the aproximate equivalent of IE 4. This is circa 1997 technology and doesn't support CSS, which the site now depends upon and requires. The pull-down-menus turn into a long list without CSS. Many of the pages that have two and three column layouts won't look right without CSS, and the columns will just display sequentially, not necessarily in the order one would expect.

 

But apart from the ability to turn off the pull-down menus, we don't plan to create a separate version of the site for browsers that lack CSS support. I'm sorry that pointing this out seems unfriendly. If Yaron turns off the pull-down-menus, the site design will probably be a bit better, but still not ideal.