Comments on: FTiM is now mobile friendly (Updated)

By: JimD

JimD — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:54:54 +0000

Yeah, that's what I meant. It looked fine on a mobile, but I saw the same thing in a browser on the MacPro and thought “eeewww.”

Glad to hear you've found the issue.

By: chartier

chartier — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:48:35 +0000

Hey Jim, I finally understand what you were talking about. Turns out there were some feature conflicts when I installed this plugin, and I didn't realize that it was serving the mobile-optimized version to some users even if they were on desktop browsers.

That was not the intention, and after a round of fixing the conflicts and lots of testing, I think I nipped this in the bud. You should now see the full desktop version in a desktop browser, and the mobile-optimized version only if you're on a relevant device.

Sorry again about this.
David Chartier
Finer Things site owner

By: chartier

chartier — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:35:40 +0000

Sorry, no this wasn't intentional. It was a bug because of the mobile-optimizing plugin I just installed. I think I just fixed everything so desktop users see the proper site, and only mobile users see the stripped-down version. Please let me know if you don't see the proper version again though.

By: chartier

chartier — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:25:29 +0000

Sorry for the trouble everyone. Apparently there are a few conflicts between the WPtouch plugin I'm using to serve an optimized site for mobile devices and the cache plugin I also have installed. I just fixed all the known conflicts and settings, and had a few folks test the site in various desktop browsers to make sure it's serving the proper desktop version. Everything seems fine again, but please let me know if you're still seeing an iPhone/mobile version of this site in your browser, and which browser you're using. Thanks.

David Chartier
Finer Things site owner

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:49:55 +0000

The mobile version displays in normal desktop mac browsers as well. The footer switch doesn't work. And iPhone centric versions of sites are always an insane and useless pain as the traditional website is best. Finally, Disqus comments are horrible for users.

WTF is going on with this blog lately?

By: Pete Yandell

Pete Yandell — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:12:41 +0000

Hmmm...and I just found the switch in the footer, but it doesn't work. Clicking it takes me to http://finerthingsinmac.com/finerthingsinmac.com/ and clicking Home from there takes me back to the mobile view.

By: Pete Yandell

Pete Yandell — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:10:31 +0000

I'm getting the iPhone version in Safari and Firefox on the Mac. (Safari 4.0.3, Firefox 3.5.4, OS X 10.6.1.)

Is this intentional? The old format was far nicer to read.

By: chartier

chartier — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:31:09 +0000

Hi Jim, sorry for any confusion, but my target market isn't just iPhone users, even though this is a heavily Apple-centric site (and so is http://finerthingsiniphone.com, where many of these changes will appear soon). In fact, as I state in this post, I chose the WPtouch plugin specifically because it optimizes a site for more than just the iPhone OS - it optimizes for Android, BlackBerry, and generic phones as well.

As far as this being a major design change to the site for desktop users, I don't think it is. This is really just an addition to make the site much more friendly to mobile devices. You shouldn't notice a thing if you only visit FTiM in a desktop browser.

I hope this helps to clear up any confusion.
David Chartier
Finer Things site owner

By: JimD

JimD — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:04:55 +0000

If your target market is exclusively iPhone users, I suppose it's fine. But if you expect people to read it on a desktop Mac, it's pretty bad. Too much wasted space, bad formatting (the text starts at the bottom right of the image and is a fluid-width layout, making it difficult to read. Isn't this the second or third design change in just a short period of time?