Time to bring back the GZ mobile version

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MartinGZ

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#315240 25-Jun-2024 12:12

I find myself reading GZ less and less these days despite the good things in there. Typically I will browse forums on my phone and if things get interesting, switch to the laptop to reply or do research.

GZ on the mobile is frankly a pain in the butt although I know some will disagree. It is the ONLY forum/site I frequent that does not do a dedicated mobile version.

Some years ago there was a pure mobile version, but for whatever reason Mauricio decided to do away with it. At the time he stated it wasn't financial, and if it was coding, there were offers from forum members to assist. Mauricio also looked at the stats, and could not see a change when the mobile version was stopped. The could well be true, but I suggest that there could be an underlying slow trend of fewer visits from people like myself.

So, can we have the mobile version back again please. 😀.

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#3252984 25-Jun-2024 12:14

I did not get offers to create or maintain a mobile version. It was removed because I couldn't maintain feature parity without a lot of effort.

I did get a couple of offers to create a mobile-friendly CSS but these never eventuated.

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MartinGZ

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#3255458 2-Jul-2024 10:40

OK, I seem to be a bit of a loan voice here, but I do think things need to change. I acknowledge the work you do (I once looked after a website/forum and said never again), but GZ is falling behind the times in the user interface on mobile.

Take for example another NZ site https://www.nzmotorhome.co.nz/, which is almost as old as GZ. This does a reasonable job on the mobile version on a very minimal budget. The mobile UI, although not perfect, is streets ahead of GZ, if you compare it is pretty easy to see the difference. The same goes with every other forum I view or participate in.

I do not know the software you use for the website, nor would I understand anyway, but if it is having to be bodged to produce the sub-standard mobile version, perhaps it is time to consider changing. As a user, all I want is something that is easy to use, read and occasionally contribute to. It seems there is plenty of stuff out there that is able to produce this.

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#3255462 2-Jul-2024 11:04

My 2c: I do not enjoy GZ (or any browsing for that matter) on iPhone - and for that reason I do very little stuff like that on my phone. The bulk of my GZing is done on an 11" iPad (with the balance on MacBook) and on iPad it works very well - without needing a mobile version. If GZ suddenly had a mobile version, I would not be tempted to use it on my phone.

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#3255494 2-Jul-2024 13:35

CSS may get you there, but err... its a lot to modify just via CSS.

The entire site kinda needs a redesign to be responsive. Thats a ton of work on something this old.

I do agree it would be nice, but I do totally understand thats a ton of work.

gzt

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#3255506 2-Jul-2024 14:27

MartinGZ: OK, I seem to be a bit of a loan voice here, but I do think things need to change. I acknowledge the work you do (I once looked after a website/forum and said never again), but GZ is falling behind the times in the user interface on mobile.

Fair comment and easy to agree with on the other hand it works well enough for most people. Vs make a mobile site 🪄a key question might be what is the one issue that affects you most?

gzt

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#3255558 2-Jul-2024 14:36

For me that one thing is no reflow for mobile screensize. The simple answer is: Use Opera mobile which does a great job of that. Personally I won't do it because.. nerd reasons {neckbeard}.. and I'm mostly used to the limitation now.

As an afterthought I did like the old WAP site and initially used it lots, less as phones improved. Overall low bandwidth sites are a great thing and not well known these days. Mobile slash uber-responsive sites are another thing entirely and not usually designed for low bandwidth purpose specifically.

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#3255565 2-Jul-2024 15:24

It wasn't WAP. It was a full HTML, DotNet website. It just had very basic formatting and limited features compared to the full site.

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MartinGZ

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#3255657 2-Jul-2024 20:27

gzt: ....a key question might be what is the one issue that affects you most?

It's the inconsistency and legibility of text as presented.

Using Chrome on a S21 Ultra.

Main Forum page. Main column readable. Right hand column text (post date etc) is probably about 2pt and hence unreadable without zooming.

Next pick a sub-forum page e.g. Offers and Wanted. Entire page is presented in Desktop mode and hence unreadable without zooming. Zooming is useless as there is no word wrap. Even with Opera, only the topic column is text wrapped on zoom.

Next page, select any of the threads. The text of the thread has been made readable, but everything else is tiny. If you want to see the author or date of a comment you have to zoom in.

It's the constant zoom in zoom out zoom in again that quickly puts me off - and I go away.

I know Mauricio did a lot of work to try and get things readable, but it is a fudge, and other websites are doing better in presentation.

eracode

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#3255718 2-Jul-2024 21:48

As mentioned earlier, I really dislike browsing on a phone. However I just looked at GZ on my iPhone 14 Pro using Safari, to refresh my memory and check what it’s like - because it’s been ages since I looked at it.

It’s small (as you’d expect) but literally perfectly formed - just like on the iPad but smaller. There’s no different sizes of text or any of the other problems outlined in the post above. The reported problems must be the result of certain combinations of browser and mobile OS.

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Batwing

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#3255727 2-Jul-2024 22:15

My visits dropped off when mobile version went away, picked up again as I learned to put up with navigating on my phone. What I struggle most with is the text box when writing replies (like this one) I can't hit the send button unless I'm near the start of a line because the page has scrolled right.

I cannot easily review what I've written because the only way I can scroll the text box is to type, dragging the cursor doesn't work.

There have definitely been topics I would have replied to with images and not just text, or offered help in response to a query but it's just.so.hard. on mobile.

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#3255728 2-Jul-2024 22:25

MartinGZ: Using Chrome on a S21 Ultra. Main Forum page. Main column readable. Right hand column text (post date etc) is probably about 2pt and hence unreadable without zooming.

Sure. I see something similar. I use email notifications for new forum topics to avoid all that. Front page is similar for me and not something I engage with on phone mobile.

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#3255810 3-Jul-2024 08:57

I have no problem reading content in the forums if I hold my phone in landscape orientation.

Having said that, I tend to use a laptop where possible as I can't post replies on my iPhone due to lack of fine motor skills limiting my use of the on-screen keyboard.

jonb

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#3255814 3-Jul-2024 09:06

I zoom in straightaway to the forums column on the left to make it a quasi-mobile site. The forum thread posts arent' too bad to read after that.

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#3255815 3-Jul-2024 09:15

I use Opera browser and GZ is quite usable on mobile devices. Probably 80% of my browsing in on a mobile device.

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#3255816 3-Jul-2024 09:16

jonb:

I zoom in straightaway to the forums column on the left to make it a quasi-mobile site. The forum thread posts arent' too bad to read after that.

Ditto. That's what I do.

A cutdown page with only the "Most Recent Topics" links and a slightly better format for the posts would be 100% ok with me.

(the actual posts require a lot of scrolling left and right to read).

Apologies - I realise that this is not something trivial to try and implement.

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