Any chance we'll see a mobile version of the site anytime soon? I do a lot of my surfing and posting here from my Droid while I'm at work. Having a mobile version to cut down on load times would be great.
I will admit, I'm a techie, but not a web design guy, so I have no idea how much work something like that would take, but given the prevailence of smartphones these days, and the ever expanding tablet market, it seems like it would be a smart idea.
I'm not necroposting - but has there been any further development in this regard? A lot has changed since 2011 and I - for one - do most of my surfing now in mobile devices. Would be great to see such a platform deployed for Paizo!
Thanks Gary - I am not sure what some of the impediments are to deploying a new site for Paizo, but you do have a strong community that would likely be most willing to assist fwiiw ;)
We are part of the way through a long-needed revamp of our HTML and CSS code. When we roll that out the website should look better on mobile devices. It won't be a mobile version per se but it's a step in the right direction.
Does that revamp include links automatically becoming clickable (hotlinking, or whatever that functionality is called)? It's really odd that this is the only place on Internet that I've seen where I have to manually select links in order to get to the desired page.
I wonder if by "manually select[ing] links" they could be referring to how links on the boards and desktop version of the PRD are packed tightly together.
On my Android phone, if I click on a link in the PRD or in the forums' table of contents, the browser usually zooms in so I can clarify which link I was trying to press. Of course, this is attributable to the fact that we've got the thread title, # new, and "X" links for multiple topics packed within an area the size of a person's fingertip. I've encountered the same with news sites and the menu bars atop many other sites as well.
The current design is basically terrible for mobile devices and targeting with fingers. If we ever do a mobile-optimized design that will be first up against the wall.Hey, at least if you browse Paizo.com using touch devices you quickly pick up mad ninja skills in targeting pixels. ;-)
This is so true, preach on bag of toothyness.
If you mean automatically linking URLs that are in messageboard posts, that behavior won't change with the revamp I'm referring to above. It might get revisited in a future revamp of the messageboards but that particular cluster of tasks hasn't been added to the schedule yet.
But why not? I mean seriously, where on internet do you even see unclickable links anymore, it's such a basic function? It's silly that you have to deal with url tags in order to do that...
Part of the reason why URL tags are useful is that if someone posts a long enough hyperlink, the parsing engine will add spaces to the continuous string of characters. This then breaks the hyperlink.
FWIW, breaking up huge strings of characters like that is a pretty standard anti-vandalism measure on most of the sites I visit. It prevents people from being able to botch the site formatting by making long strings of text word-wrap rather than the page being widened to accommodate them. Using the URL tags allows someone to post a hyperlink of any link and have it still work independent of what the hyperlink actually looks like on the screen. Naturally, the URL tags also allow someone to change what the text of the hyperlink looks like without being shoehorned into a specific whitespace format (which, IMO, is a far more valuable usage).
Still, it would be nice to see the parser wrap hyperlinks with url tags for those who somehow miss the "How to format your text" spoiler. I'd personally suggest [url=link] as the default usage.
If you mean automatically linking URLs that are in messageboard posts, that behavior won't change with the revamp I'm referring to above. It might get revisited in a future revamp of the messageboards but that particular cluster of tasks hasn't been added to the schedule yet.
It would be nice if the messageboard didn't automatically break them. I can deal with not auto-linking, but causing them to break is annoying.
I'm encountering a weird situation- up until a couple of months ago, the message boards loaded fine on my Android based Galaxy S3 using Dolphin Browser. Then abruptly it just got stuck indefinitely loading.
If you mean automatically linking URLs that are in messageboard posts, that behavior won't change with the revamp I'm referring to above. It might get revisited in a future revamp of the messageboards but that particular cluster of tasks hasn't been added to the schedule yet.It would be nice if the messageboard didn't automatically break them. I can deal with not auto-linking, but causing them to break is annoying.
It breaks them because otherwise people can post arbitrarily long strings of characters, which can mess up the formatting of the page. As someone pointed out above, it's an anti-vandalism measure.
I don't seem to have any trouble on my IPad. I tend to dislike mobile versions of websites.
Personally I'd love to be able to access them via Tapatalk like I can for enWorld. :)
Back to the mad pixel skills, that's absolutely true. It's great for leveling up to 20th level pixel ninja!
Actually, if I am on mobile (most time I'm not on mobile while visiting Paizo to tell the truth), I magnify so it's easier to pick out the links myself.
Personally, I like how Paizo does the links (at least if you do the normal url formatting, which I think they explain how to do under how to format your text if you don't) for things we post.