Mobile display bug on multipage threads

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#1
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In desktop mode, looking at a thread that goes to a second page (the ProSeries thread in the Business Development forum), I get links at the very bottom to go to page 2 or back to page 1 as appropriate.

But in mobile mode, on an iPhone 5 with the latex Safari, those links don't appear. I can go back to the forum index and click directly on the page 2 link to get to it, and the break between pages 1 and 2 is the same, I just can't navigate directly from page 1 to page 2 or back.
 

#2
chris  
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The page navigation on the mobile skin is in a drop-down that is effected by clicking the little "#" symbol up top near the magnifying glass icon.

Now that you point this out, I agree it is not a great design point and I will see about moving those navigation page links someplace where they are more accessible.
Site admin and software developer for TaxProTalk.com and https://TheSiteFactory.com
 

#3
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Sigh. I've never liked to play "guess the affordance" (aka "guess what's clickable") in UIs. I like it even less on mobile apps, because it's so easy to touch points accidentally.

I'd settle for "<" and ">", not having much need for direct access to specific pages in this forum.

Thanks for looking at this.
 

#4
Frankly  
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Maybe someone could explain why a discussion is broken down into "pages". Why not put it all on one page?
 

#5
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Two reasons (at least).

One is that long threads can overwhelm browsers on small mobile devices, as well as on slow cell or net connections. You may just want to read the two posts that got added in the last 24 hours, but the browser still needs to download everything.

Another is that it's cumbersome to read if you're doing anything besides reading the last few posts on a thread. This becomes a tradeoff between knowing that the particular answer you want is 25% of the way down the page versus knowing that it's on page 2 of a 4 page thread. Particularly if the thread grows, as once you know it's on page 2, it will always be there, but if it's all on one page and the thread doubles in length, it will only be 12.5% of the way down the page. (This feels vaguely familiar; forgive me if I've made this argument previously here.)

I have no idea how many people read and navigate the way I do, versus using forums in ways that might favor single pages. But I've been on the net since the days of the ARPAnet, and the only argument I've ever found in favor of putting it all on one page is that too many net newbies don't understand the concept of having to manually move to the next page of a thread. Then again, I stopped following such usability debates about ten or so years ago.
 

#6
Frankly  
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One may set forum preferences to sort the list by date with the most recent post on top and the first post at the bottom. Saves a lot of scrolling, or page jumping, as the case may be.
 

#7
chris  
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ok, on the original issue - to make the pagination controls visible all the time in the mobile theme would have required extensive surgery in the javascript that runs the mobile theme. I didn't want to create that much of a derivative so as a compromise I modified the CSS and I also changed the tag for the page controls from "#" to "PAGES"

This should make it more apparent on mobile devices, that you need to tap that 'PAGES' link in order to navigate between pages within a topic or within a forum (list of topics).

This change should be picked up automatically; on some devices it might require clearing the cache or re-loading the site twice to force the CSS to refresh.
Site admin and software developer for TaxProTalk.com and https://TheSiteFactory.com
 

#8
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And it looks good. Apologies for not thanking you you earlier, but I was away on vacation.
 

#9
wmirtes  
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Farmington Hills, Michigan
On my smart phone I tried to setup my taxprotalk user name it kept telling me my location was too short. I looked and couldn't find the location field. I then tried it on my laptop and realized that on the full version, there was a location field. I double checked the mobile session on my phone, and it wasn't there. Just giving anyone that can change this a heads up...
 

#10
chris  
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Thanks for pointing that out, I will fix it.

EDIT: This has now been fixed; the registration process should work fine from a mobile phone now...thanks!
Site admin and software developer for TaxProTalk.com and https://TheSiteFactory.com
 


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