Ponies on Safari

November 27, 2011 6:34 AM

Three ponies for mobile browsers: remove posts from Recent Activity, go to my own comment after posting it (instead of the top of the page) and the ability to make a new post. Safari on ios 5 here.
posted by desjardins to Feature Requests at 6:34 AM (50 comments total)

Off the top of my head:

1. You can enable the full view of the site on your mobile device. I actually read MeFi on my phone using the normal stylesheet, plain theme and it looks great and I get all the features.

2. huh, I didn't know we stripped the target to the bottom of the page after commenting. We will think about putting something back there.

3. There has been some discussion about this decision, but we feel pretty strongly that you should test out your links, spend some time writing a good explanation of your post, pick tags and titles that work, etc, all stuff that is painful to do on a tiny display. We often see mobile users just copy/pasting links in comments because writing HTML on the iOS keyboard is such a pain (greater than and less than brackets are two keyboards away from the default).

I'm not saying it's impossible to write a well-crafted post on an iOS device, but putting something on the home page of the site is something we hope people take time and care to do and that usually means working on a full computer to do it.

If you disagree fully and still want to make posts, you can bookmark the posting page from the standard web view on your mobile device.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:19 AM on November 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

mathowie: 3. There has been some discussion about this decision, but we feel pretty strongly that you should test out your links, spend some time writing a good explanation of your post, pick tags and titles that work, etc, all stuff that is painful to do on a tiny display.

Yeah, spelling and grammatical errors, not to mention mobile auto-correct, make it pretty damn easy to spot who's posting comments from their phone. Creating an easier way for people to craft FPPs from their mobile browser is a bad idea.
posted by gman at 8:12 AM on November 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

You know the "skip" link at the top of the page takes you right to the bottom, right?
posted by tomswift at 8:36 AM on November 27, 2011

Never mind.. I'm on the regular site....please pretend I'm not an idiot.
posted by tomswift at 8:38 AM on November 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

please pretend I'm not an idiot.

[glances uncomfortably over shoulder while trying not to get caught looking]

YOU KNOW WHO'S DEFINITELY NOT AN IDIOT? TOMSWIFT, THAT'S WHO.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 8:42 AM on November 27, 2011 [4 favorites]

You're not an idiot, tomswift. The 'skip' button does take you to the bottom of the page. As I recall, Safari on IOS doesn't handle page location on any normal way, so skipping down to your comment once you post isn't really possible. Maybe mathowie or pb can correct me, but even when I'm using the non-mobile site on my iPad or iPhone I have this problem. I don't think there's a way to fix it; hence the 'skip' button.
posted by koeselitz at 9:04 AM on November 27, 2011

That's true koeselitz, there are problems with anchors in Safari. We even put in special code to "force" the browser to go to the anchor and that seems to be working fairly well.

Now that we're highlighting comments that are linked we could probably revisit where we send people after they post a comment. If we send folks specifically to their comment instead of a target at the bottom of the page, it would be highlighted by the arrow. (Linking to a specific comment changes the behavior of inline comment updating slightly, so there are trade-offs. A comment anchor disables the "#inline-[comment-id]" anchor—which communicates the latest update information to the page if you use the back button.) But the specific comment anchor would probably be more clear. I'll do some testing.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:29 AM on November 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

There is also a "scroll to bottom" java script bookmark I use on the iPad,works on any site.

javascript:window.scrollTo%280%2Cdocument.body.scrollHeight%29%3b%0a
posted by tomswift at 9:46 AM on November 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

I will second adding the remove from activity link next to the Site Section: Post Title area of the mobile version of the RA page. It doesn't have to be the fancy ajaxy version, but I do prefer reading the page in the mobile version on my iOS device than the full version, so right now if I am traveling and I want to remove a post, the steps are: Notice thread has derailed to something else, try to remove from activity, remember I have to switch to standard site, select Remove from Activity, switch back to mobile site, or else every other page I want to visit on MeFi gets switched back to standard on me.

Considering I can add favorites, remove favorites, flag, and comment all without having to change themes, it is kind of non intuitive and head scratching that removing a thread from activity is not available.
posted by mrzarquon at 10:54 AM on November 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

Considering I can add favorites, remove favorites, flag, and comment all without having to change themes, it is kind of non intuitive and head scratching that removing a thread from activity is not available.

Removing a thread from favorites doesn't happen (in aggregate, at least) nearly as often as the activities you listed. That combined with the fact that page real estate is at a premium in the mobile version and it didn't make the cut. "Remove from activity" is a fairly long phrase and it'd be easy to fat-finger on a phone. We don't want the reverse MetaTalk, please remove the link I always accidentally click.

If you do frequently remove threads from recently activity and don't make it to a full browser often, I understand the hassle, but I'm not sure it's worth the complication of mobile Recent Activity that would be required.
posted by pb (staff) at 11:15 AM on November 27, 2011

One thing that would make use of Metafilter on mobile devices more pleasant is spacing out the flag and favorite buttons. As it works currently, it is easy to accidentally flag a post, instead of marking it with a favorite.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:31 AM on November 27, 2011 [6 favorites]

Can you add a link to My Mefi in the bottom menu on the mobile site? My Ask is already in the menu on mobile AskMe.
posted by bluefly at 11:33 AM on November 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

mathowie: You can enable the full view of the site on your mobile device.

I've never been able to get this to happen. I click on the "Switch to Standard Site" link (http://www.metafilter.com/mobile-to-standard.cfm), but it just reloads the mobile version of the site (with the URL http://www.metafilter.com).

What am I doing wrong? Or does this feature only work in Safari?
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 12:00 PM on November 27, 2011

What browser are you using? And do you have cookies enabled?
posted by pb (staff) at 12:03 PM on November 27, 2011

One thing that would make use of Metafilter on mobile devices more pleasant is spacing out the flag and favorite buttons.

Have you tried out swipe-right to favorite?
posted by pb (staff) at 12:05 PM on November 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

Commenting on Mango (win mobile) is pretty messed up. As is the linked comment triangle. No biggie. I assume I'm the only mefite stupid enough to have a modern windows phone. :-)
posted by seanyboy at 12:05 PM on November 27, 2011

Have you tried out swipe-right to favorite?

I tried it out, but it didn't work. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:07 PM on November 27, 2011

pb: What browser are you using? And do you have cookies enabled?

I'm using... uh... What the hell browser am I using? Why can't I find this information?

It's an Android phone, and the browser is whatever is the default for a Samsung Galaxy S2.

But yeah, I do have cookies enabled. I've done all the usual things like clearing cookies and clearing all browser data. Doesn't help.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 12:12 PM on November 27, 2011

Wait what now?

The last time mobile favorites came up we tested out swipe-right to favorite. You have to enable the test here. (And you can disable it there too.) The reception was pretty good, but we haven't turned it on for everyone yet.
posted by pb (staff) at 12:53 PM on November 27, 2011 [12 favorites]

Samsung Galaxy S2

Thanks. I'll need to put together an emulator for that and see if I can duplicate it.
posted by pb (staff) at 12:55 PM on November 27, 2011

Thanks pb.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 1:00 PM on November 27, 2011

I went on Safari and all I saw was these three ponies :(
posted by Abiezer at 1:50 PM on November 27, 2011

*swipe* Oh, nifty! Thanks, pb!
posted by Lexica at 1:54 PM on November 27, 2011

pb: "Have you tried out swipe-right to favourite?"

How did I miss that? Very sexy!
posted by dg at 2:05 PM on November 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

This swipe right thing, I'll definitely have to try that out on my phone. Trying to favorite things with fat fingers is an exercise in frustration, no matter how far you zoom in.

"No, I don't want to see who favorited it. Damn it, I'm not trying to flag it! Not who favorited again! Aagh... it wasn't worth a favorite anyway..."
posted by Ghidorah at 4:57 PM on November 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

Whoop! SRTF rocks, pb!
posted by likeso at 5:04 PM on November 27, 2011

go to my own comment after posting it (instead of the top of the page)

My shortcut to do this is to hit "Menu."
posted by bluedaisy at 7:03 PM on November 27, 2011

the ability to make a new post

I have only made a post one time from my phone (appropriately enough, it was about how to share files between my MacBook and iPhone because I didn't have internet access on my MacBook). I didn't mind the extra step of going to the regular site and making the post from there, since I generally have access to a computer for posting. So this one doesn't bother me too much.
posted by bluedaisy at 7:08 PM on November 27, 2011

I can't make the swipe right to favourite thing work!!! Wah! What's the knack?
posted by taff at 8:30 PM on November 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hoo, look at that!!! It has to be of a certain size. Which I don't normally read at...but it's cute. Thank you pb!
posted by taff at 8:34 PM on November 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

I lie, I can favourite everything!!!
posted by taff at 8:35 PM on November 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

Holy cow, swiping right to favorite is awesome! Please keep this feature!
posted by misozaki at 3:26 AM on November 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, it's pretty awesome, great idea.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:38 AM on November 28, 2011

Does v 2.0 have 'swipe left to flag'?
posted by dg at 5:18 AM on November 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Never mind, I just finished reading the other thread. BTW, I love that SRTF works on my iPad using the normal stylesheet, FWIW.
posted by dg at 5:24 AM on November 28, 2011

paleyellowwithorange, everything is checking out ok for me in Android 2.3.3.

One idea: we have the domain mobile.metafilter.com set up so you can force whatever device you're using to use the mobile style. I found a bug there that stopped the "forced mobile" devices from switching to the standard style if you did switching back and forth and fixed that up. If you happened to visit mobile.metafilter.com on your android, you might have run into that bug. If you clear your cookies you should be set.

Just to be clear, there is no reason to visit mobile.metafilter.com ever unless you're doing some sort of experimenting or your device isn't detected as mobile when you visit any standard MetaFilter domain.
posted by pb (staff) at 11:41 AM on November 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Just to be clear, there is no reason to visit mobile.metafilter.com ever unless you're doing some sort of experimenting or your device isn't detected as mobile when you visit any standard MetaFilter domain.

Just FYI, visiting that link on a desktop machine, when you're logged in, gives you a nice professional white background AND doesn't mention your username in the menus or above the comment box. Useful for office drones.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:55 AM on November 28, 2011

ok, we're trying a test here in MetaTalk only. When you add a comment the redirect will link to the new comment anchor instead of the bottom of the page.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:16 PM on November 28, 2011

Test!
posted by desjardins at 2:41 PM on November 28, 2011

Works for me.
posted by desjardins at 2:41 PM on November 28, 2011

Is there a way to swipe a second time to remove a favorite? I really love the idea of using haptics this way.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:52 PM on November 28, 2011

Yeah, once you've added a favorite swipe it again to remove it.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:52 PM on November 28, 2011

Thanks for looking into that for me, pb.

However, now I can't access MetaFilter on my phone at all! After I saw your post (above), I cleared my browser's cache, history, cookies, form data, location access and passwords, and restarted the phone for good measure. Having done all that, when I try to access any MetaFilter site (including mobile.metafilter.com), I get this message: Couldn't reach the indicated web server.

Sorry about all the trouble. Can you please help me troubleshoot this new problem?

If this is derailing the thread too much, feel free to MeMail me.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 3:05 PM on November 28, 2011

Sounds like standard network trouble to me. I'm not sure there's much I can do from this end. Try changing networks. If you're on wifi switch to your cell provider (or vice versa).
posted by pb (staff) at 3:09 PM on November 28, 2011

I'm not using wifi - just my regular internet connection. The problem isn't affecting any other website - all other pages load immediately without a problem. It's just limited to MetaFilter sites.

I don't have access to wifi (as far as I know). I'll continue to try to connect to MetaFilter periodically throughout the day. Hopefully it will resolve itself.

Thanks again for your help.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 3:18 PM on November 28, 2011

Brandon Blatcher: "Just FYI, visiting that link on a desktop machine, when you're logged in, gives you a nice professional white background AND doesn't mention your username in the menus or above the comment box. Useful for office drones."

You must be already using the white background? The mobile site has the proper colours for me in Firefox. It does look less obviously like a forum site, but the menu is HUGE.
posted by dg at 3:48 PM on November 28, 2011

Okay, can someone please explain in small words how to make swipe to right work?
posted by bluedaisy at 8:12 PM on November 28, 2011

bluedaisy, swipe right to favorite is a testing-mode you have to enable. To enable the test, make sure you're logged into MetaFilter on your phone. Visit this thread on your phone and click this link:

enable swipe test

That will set a cookie on your phone that says, "yes, I want to test out swipe right to favorite." Once this cookie is set, here's how swiping right to favorite works:

Find a comment you want to favorite. Put your finger on the left side of the comment, touching the screen. Hold your finger down and move it toward the right side of the comment across the screen. A box should pop up that says, "Favorite this comment?" and you have the option to click OK or CANCEL. Click OK to save that comment as a favorite.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:22 PM on November 28, 2011 [15 favorites]

Ah-ha! Thanks!
posted by bluedaisy at 8:54 PM on November 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is this the thread where I get to say in a pathetic squeaky voice that I really wish that the back button in safari for ios5 would (consistently) take me back to where I was on the previous page rather than the top? I've googled this every way I know how and come up short. Is there a fix?
posted by firstdrop at 7:26 AM on November 29, 2011