Pony request: mobile edition or better responsiveness June 5, 2018 5:13 PM Subscribe
I have trouble posting to Meta on my phone. I don't access any personal accounts on my work laptop during the day but when I'm at lunch by myself I'm reading Metafilter on my phone. Here's what I see when I try to post a comment or AskMe response. This is the latest version of Chrome on the latest version of iOS on an iPhone 7.
Portrait: The post box is much wider than the screen and the keyboard is over the box as well. It requires much scrolling left and right which causes a back button event if you aren't careful.
Landscape is even worse. My eyesight isn't what it used to be and I often read in landscape view. But the on-screen keyboard is tall enough to bump into the URL bar and there's no way I can post in landscape view.
I looked at the site in the Chrome dev tools in the mobile view and it looks fine but on the device itself not so much.
Portrait: The post box is much wider than the screen and the keyboard is over the box as well. It requires much scrolling left and right which causes a back button event if you aren't careful.
Landscape is even worse. My eyesight isn't what it used to be and I often read in landscape view. But the on-screen keyboard is tall enough to bump into the URL bar and there's no way I can post in landscape view.
I looked at the site in the Chrome dev tools in the mobile view and it looks fine but on the device itself not so much.
Yeah, I'll chime in to say that I've been having the same problem with the classic theme (but not modern) on Safari in iOS. I have to zoom way out to see the whole post box, and my girlfriend has been making fun of me for typing stuff with such tiny little letters.
It never even occurred to me to bring this to anyone's attention, sorry.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 5:27 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
It never even occurred to me to bring this to anyone's attention, sorry.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 5:27 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
Same here. Thanks for pointing this out, bendy!
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 5:31 PM on June 5, 2018
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 5:31 PM on June 5, 2018
frimble - I can't remember which theme is which but I'm using the professional blue background.
posted by bendy at 7:09 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by bendy at 7:09 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
+1ing. The main reason I didn’t bring it up is because halfway through my comments I get frustrated and leave without commenting, which, honestly, is for the best. I talk too much. I view it as the site reminding me to shut the eff up and listen.
posted by greermahoney at 10:47 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by greermahoney at 10:47 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
But yeah. I do all my mefi-ing through my phone and the whole experience of commenting (or Hera forbid! Posting!) is bad.
posted by greermahoney at 10:49 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by greermahoney at 10:49 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
I don't know if this will help at all, but: on my teeny-tiny bargain-basement smartphone—which I've never needed to use with MeFi, though, because I always at least have a tablet with me—I have similar problems whenever I need to type anything. So I usually write it in a text editor and then cut and paste. I use OI Notepad, but there are probably better apps as it's the first one I tried.
posted by XMLicious at 11:55 PM on June 5, 2018
posted by XMLicious at 11:55 PM on June 5, 2018
Since we’re discussing mobile usability. When creating posts for the front page or any of the subsites, the “bold, italics, link” tab is below the text box. But when writing comments the same tab is above the text box. If I want to make use of that tab I have to highlight text in my comment. At least on my iPad that triggers a pop-up menu (“cut, copy, replace” etc.) which obscures the MetaFilter comment tab. That doesn’t happen when the same tab is below the text box, like when creating front-page posts.
posted by Kattullus at 5:39 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Kattullus at 5:39 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I switched to Classic theme because people said Modern caused crashiness while reading the megathreads. I didn't realize posting was better in Modern. I just figured it was the cost of doing stuff on a phone.
posted by rikschell at 11:53 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by rikschell at 11:53 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yeah I use Modern on my phone specifically because the comment box in Classic sucks. Also there's no way to ask a question in AskMe when you're in Classic Mobile; you have to toggle over to Desktop. I prefer Classic overall (never could get used to blue & green, blue & yellow for life!) and use it on my laptop, but it's hard to use on my phone.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 1:54 PM on June 6, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 1:54 PM on June 6, 2018 [2 favorites]
Oh, and I use Mobile Safari.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 1:56 PM on June 6, 2018
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 1:56 PM on June 6, 2018
Oh. Thanks, rikschell. I hadn’t checked out modern because I heard the same thing about the megathreads. But whoa. It’s way better.
posted by greermahoney at 6:11 PM on June 6, 2018
posted by greermahoney at 6:11 PM on June 6, 2018
Is this the place to complain about the mouseover tag ? Because those totally don't work on mobile.
posted by Pendragon at 12:00 PM on June 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Pendragon at 12:00 PM on June 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
In any case, you're right that that's frustrating and it's something that I'll try to get fixed very soon.
posted by frimble (staff) at 5:15 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]