Re: Perlmonks SmartPhone App

[davido]

I see the biggest challenge to using PerlMonks on a small device (aside from the difficulty of typing markup and code on an alpha-centric keyboard) is the fact that the nodelets at the side take too much width away from the main section.

Rather than a dedicated app for each platform I see more value in (and have thought about this before too) allowing a URL to have a rendertype=tiny, or something along those lines.

As for what that would do: All active nodelets would render at the bottom (below the main section). That way I get more width for what counts. Hand in hand with that, the Nodelet Settings page could have a column dedicated to minimal displays to allow me to pick and choose which nodelets I want to see on my screen-size-challenged device, independently of the standard settings used everywhere else.

Of course what this requires is a lot of work, and it's hard to find a volunteer who knows the site's internals well enough, and is motivated enough to see a project like that through to the end, and has the time.

[tye]

allowing a URL to have a rendertype=tiny, or something

Um, I've used PerlMonks on tiny screens for years. That's why for years we've had the ability to insert /bare/ into any standard URL here (and why we don't use CSS for sizing and positioning of elements -- tables are much better at resizing than almost anything done in CSS, in my experience -- an experience that has repeatedly tried to prove otherwise but always failed).

There are several improvements that make a lot of sense for that "start", many of which I've surely talked about before. No, none of them are actually close to my top priority right now. I guess we'll see if anybody can effectively get that work done (one of my higher priorities was actually making it easier for others to effectively get changes applied to the site; sadly, it didn't turn out to be enough of a priority for some others enlisted to help on that -- maybe that will change at some point).

As for a mobile app, I'm certainly not stopping perl.j from writing one. Or was this a "please somebody else do that for me" request? :)

[perl.j]

I came up with the idea (as many others have before me) and thought it may benefit the site. It is said here, on the Perl Monks Discussion page that I can "offer ideas on how the site could be improved" so that's what I did. Tye, I'm sorry if did not see that but it is simply what I did. I know I cannot build the app, although if I knew how I would be happy to build it, but it is an idea that I threw out there for all to see. Just an idea...

[perl.j]

I agree with davido. From my experience it is difficult to use the PerlMonks website on a small screen. The nodelets could be in a menu for themselves within the app.