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Cornflake
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28 May 2025, 8:44 am

CapedOwl wrote:
I have respect for just leaving a working system running, even if it's somewhat old-school.
Agreed - not everything requires a trumpet-blowing, whizzy GUI requiring horsepower just to browse.
And despite (this version) being abandonware it's largely functional; most of the issues experienced are through poor/incomplete implementation.

But then there's the issue of adding just a little more functionality. Unfortunately that's been a non-starter for years.


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MatchboxVagabond
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28 May 2025, 9:50 am

Cornflake wrote:
CapedOwl wrote:
I have respect for just leaving a working system running, even if it's somewhat old-school.
Agreed - not everything requires a trumpet-blowing, whizzy GUI requiring horsepower just to browse.
And despite (this version) being abandonware it's largely functional; most of the issues experienced are through poor/incomplete implementation.

But then there's the issue of adding just a little more functionality. Unfortunately that's been a non-starter for years.

I'd go further and suggest that much of the time an older UI is a good sign of developer competence, provided that it doesn't have a bunch of security vulnerabilities. There's nothing like one of those modern UIs to remind me that I've got visual processing issues when I don't even see key bits of the UI that I need to operate the site. Or, have to scroll for a half hour to get to what I was looking for because they thought that infinite scroll was acceptable.



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29 May 2025, 2:36 am

MatchboxVagabond wrote:
There's nothing like one of those modern UIs to remind me that I've got visual processing issues when I don't even see key bits of the UI that I need to operate the site. Or, have to scroll for a half hour to get to what I was looking for because they thought that infinite scroll was acceptable.

The very odd time I look at Facebook, it's like being strapped to a medieval torture rack. It's like this idiot's carnival of horrible React widgets which have no logical organization whatsoever, other than to be a Fisher Price baby-spinner-widget toy.


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jamie0.0
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29 May 2025, 7:06 am

My one and only gripe with the UX of the site is that the page numbers on the threads are really small and too close to the subscribe to thread button (on mobile) I find myself subscribing to threads I didn't mean to when I'm trying to get to a specific page.


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Cornflake
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29 May 2025, 7:26 am

Yes - a side-effect of it being built only with a desktop in mind (or at a push, a tablet).

The trouble with using it on a mobile is that everyone is given sausage fingers, or has to spend far too much time pinch-zooming to access stuff.


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jamie0.0
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29 May 2025, 7:34 am

Cornflake wrote:
Yes - a side-effect of it being built only with a desktop in mind (or at a push, a tablet).

The trouble with using it on a mobile is that everyone is given sausage fingers, or has to spend far too much time pinch-zooming to access stuff.


The mobile version is entirely workable for the most part. I actually didn't think of pinch to zoom, I may try that next time.


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CapedOwl
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29 May 2025, 10:05 am

Cornflake wrote:
Yes - a side-effect of it being built only with a desktop in mind (or at a push, a tablet).

The trouble with using it on a mobile is that everyone is given sausage fingers, or has to spend far too much time pinch-zooming to access stuff.

I'm curious: do most site visitors come in from mobile, or desktop/tablet? Do the analytics reveal Operating System?

I, for one, prefer desktop, as I can type fastest there.


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Cornflake
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29 May 2025, 4:45 pm

I wish I could answer that - but such information is not accessible to me. :shrug:

Otherwise yes, I prefer using a desktop setup.
I had ISP issues one time and had to resort to temporarily using a mobile. Horrible. 8O


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CapedOwl
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29 May 2025, 5:25 pm

Cornflake, would you be OK with me asking in your Stats Forum, running a poll to find who is coming in via mobile/tablet/desktop? To try to get a sense of numbers?

I too tried visiting on a mobile, didn't like it.


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29 May 2025, 5:54 pm

CapedOwl wrote:
MatchboxVagabond wrote:
There's nothing like one of those modern UIs to remind me that I've got visual processing issues when I don't even see key bits of the UI that I need to operate the site. Or, have to scroll for a half hour to get to what I was looking for because they thought that infinite scroll was acceptable.

The very odd time I look at Facebook, it's like being strapped to a medieval torture rack. It's like this idiot's carnival of horrible React widgets which have no logical organization whatsoever, other than to be a Fisher Price baby-spinner-widget toy.


Well said.

Three gold stars for you: :star: :star: :star:



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29 May 2025, 10:24 pm

Thanks! :)


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30 May 2025, 2:40 am

Just FYI: I found an interesting study comparing "Mobile Vs. Desktop Internet Usage" for 2024:
https://www.broadbandsearch.net/blog/mo ... statistics

It's findings say desktop/laptop usage is still *slightly* ahead of mobile usage in regions like North America and South America. But not in Europe, and especially Asia and Africa, where mobile usage is now ahead of desktop for day-to-day usage.

Just saying: If anyone is interested in trying out Flarum (to see how it fares on both desktop and mobile), they have a (non-autism-specific) flagship instance running here:
https://discuss.flarum.org

I think you'll find both the desktop and mobile experience in Flarum are really decent. Maybe it's not perfect for covering *every* need this community has at present, feature-wise; its features get extended by community-contributed "Extensions". But none the less, IMHO, Flarum is a small miracle, really, for being "modern" (mobile-friendly), lightweight, and open source.


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Cornflake
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31 May 2025, 9:37 am

CapedOwl wrote:
Cornflake, would you be OK with me asking in your Stats Forum, running a poll to find who is coming in via mobile/tablet/desktop? To try to get a sense of numbers?

I too tried visiting on a mobile, didn't like it.
An excellent idea! Please link it here when available.

Owing to desktop issues I'm struggling with an Android tablet ATM. Barely useable. :x
Stupid keyboard doesn't have square brackets, far too fiddly manipulating tabs.

Moved to a laptop I forgot I had, running Linux. That's better! :thumright:

Rather than getting bogged down in a list of all versions of all OSes and all flavors of platforms, maybe something like this?

Select any two of the following:
Primary OS used with WP and the primary platform it's used on.

* Windows, any version
* Linux or Linux-like inc. Unix or BSD
* Apple
* Android
* Desktop
* Laptop
* Tablet
* Mobile phone (cellphone)


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CapedOwl
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01 Jun 2025, 8:16 am

Cornflake wrote:
Select any two of the following:
Primary OS used with WP and the primary platform it's used on.

* Windows, any version
* Linux or Linux-like inc. Unix or BSD
* Apple
* Android
* Desktop
* Laptop
* Tablet
* Mobile phone (cellphone)


viewtopic.php?f=16&t=427343


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Cornflake
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01 Jun 2025, 9:02 am

Excellent - thanks.
I've just voted as the first desktop user. 8)


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MatchboxVagabond
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01 Jun 2025, 10:30 am

Cornflake wrote:
Yes - a side-effect of it being built only with a desktop in mind (or at a push, a tablet).

The trouble with using it on a mobile is that everyone is given sausage fingers, or has to spend far too much time pinch-zooming to access stuff.

One of the great tragedies of the net is that XML or some other similar technology didn't take off to separate the content from the markup. If XML had taken off, it would have been a lot easier to get sites like this to run well on desktop and have a second set of markup to make them still work well on smaller screens.

It would probably be possible to parse all of this out and reformat it, but there are so many issues with doing so. I think the thing about the site that causes me the most trouble when using it on my cellphone is those stupid emoji blocking things and making it hard to scroll down to the buttons. (the fact that we have all those options on so many sites is a damning indictment of younger Millennials and Gen Z for being too lazy and uncreative to type them in with characters as God intended /jk-ish)