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Mobile friendly 8 years 11 months ago #48887

  • muradsshah
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Looking for some ideas to make our club website* mobile friendly. Any suggested best practices? [*http://nilestownship.toastmastersclubs.org/]
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Mobile friendly 8 years 11 months ago #48889

  • LindaMann
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Looking for some ideas to make our club website* mobile friendly. Any suggested best practices? [*http://nilestownship.toastmastersclubs.org/]


Have you thought about getting a QR code?

Linda
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Mobile friendly 8 years 11 months ago #48890

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Thanks for replying, Linda.

No but would be interested in doing so. Can you point me to how to get one?

Also, any suggestions on my original question?

Thanks,
Murad.
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Mobile friendly 8 years 11 months ago #48891

  • SteveTheTechie
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There is not much you can do at this point since the template is fixed and I control the template. Even if you modify your content, it is contained in the template which you cannot directly modify. Per our Terms of Use, you own your content, but we own the template that makes the system function.

I will be doing some things in the future to make the template more responsive to varying screen widths, but it is just not that high on my priority list at this time. As I do this as a volunteer, I have to carefully manage where I put my limited spare time that I invest in developing the system.

With that in mind, what you should do moving forward (being proactive) is to make sure all images are sized in terms of percentages instead of fixed pixels. Also, you should make sure that all fonts are sized in terms of ems or percentages of normal font size. These are standard fluid design practices that most users do not follow. The image size approach is pretty easy, but the font size strategy is a bit more difficult, since the editor plugin forces you to use fixed pixel sizes for fonts.
Regards,

Steve James, DTM
FreeToastHost System Developer
Officer Emeritus, Mindful Communicators (Club 1966, District 52) A President's Distinguished Club for each of the last 10 years.

>>> Please put your club number in your forum profile. CLICK here to edit your profile.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Jane Atkinson, LindaMann
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Mobile friendly 8 years 11 months ago #48892

  • LindaMann
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Thanks for replying, Linda.

No but would be interested in doing so. Can you point me to how to get one?

Also, any suggestions on my original question?

Thanks,
Murad.


Here is one site to create a QR code and you can color code it to whatever color you want. You can match the color up with a TI color, or/and your website color.

http://www.qrstuff.com/

Linda
Last edit: by LindaMann. Reason: The link was not active
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Mobile friendly 8 years 11 months ago #48893

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Thank you for getting back to me on the question, Steve.

Will be looking forward to a time when the site renders itself on smaller screens so we can encourage prospective members to check us out on their way home from work or any time they are waiting around in line anywhere!

Thanks again,
Murad.
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Mobile friendly 8 years 11 months ago #48895

  • Jessica.Hentges
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Hi Steve,
I have just started to look at my website from my iPad, normally I use my computer because I updated that way but I was doing something and needed to use my iPad instead because I was not near my computer. What I discovered was the site wasn't mobile friendly so I looked on the forums and found this discussion.

I understand that creating mobile friendly site is not at the top of your priority list but doing some research for my own website I have discovered that 60% of website views are on mobile devices. Also along with that Google is beginning to make some changes to the way sites appear in their search engines. One of those changes is that it is going to be indicated whether the site is mobile friendly or not, which will allow a person determine whether or not they're going to view the site based on how weather actually going to be able to view it on their mobile device.

Here is Google's blog post about the change: googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2015...friendly-search.html

I wanted to pass this information onto you because it is my personal opinion that it is important for the website to be mobile friendly. I simply wanted to get my thoughts across and share my point of view on this.

Thank you for all of your hard work,
Jessica
Jessica Silhavy, DTM
Web Admin
District 77
toastmasters77.org
Vocalizers Toastmasters Club - Club #5175
vocalizers.toastmastersclubs.org
The following user(s) said Thank You: LindaMann
Last edit: by Jessica.Hentges.
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Mobile friendly 8 years 11 months ago #48896

  • GeorgeMarshall
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Even though the site design is not currently responsive to mobile devices, you can still do a few things to make it easier for users on mobile devices.

My #1 would be to put your meeting date, time and location very near the top of the home page, in slightly larger font, so it is easily found and readable (this is actually good advice for any club site :-)

#2 would be on the directions page, be sure you are taking advantage of the Google maps feature. The map is set up so that if you touch it on a smart phone, it brings up the Google map on your phone, again, making it easier to use on the small screen.

# 3 would be to avoid large images on the home page, as they take up lots of space on a small screen.
George'
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Mobile friendly 8 years 11 months ago #48897

  • SteveTheTechie
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Ok, since this has come up before, let me address this in more depth for the "lurker's benefit", also. :lol:

The current layout *was* updated in version 2.20. Not so much visibly updated much to most user's eyes, but much of the underlying code was updated considerably to allow easier maintenance and make it easier to add features in the future.

At its core, FreeToastHost was designed as and is essentially a desktop based system. That means that much of the layout is a fixed layout. "Mobile first" design was not in vogue back when the system was created and I was not involved at that time.

I *am* interested in updating the layout to be more adaptable, but based on what I know about the underlying code, it is going to be a good chunk of my time to get it right. Frequently, it has been a case with the FreeToastHost code that I have had to go back and gut the underlying code that is the weak foundation of the system to enable me to make the system more stable and viable for the long run (and also allow adding features). It is like trying to add another room to a house when the foundation is weak. This is another reason it is taking so long to get certain things added.

The system will never be WordPress or a bootstrap based system (for those that are familiar with bootstrap), because FreeToastHost is intended to be much more than just a page layout system. (layout + agendas, email, dues, etc.)

However, we can learn things from responsive layout based systems that can be applied to FreeToastHost in many cases. We can do some screen tweaking for different screen widths, for example. (I am reviewing a style sheet for responsive layouts called skeleton.css.)

Here is the caveat, though. What is fundamentally different about FreeToastHost from many of the other systems that people will cite as examples is that FreeToastHost is essentially a content management system targeted to be useful to users with little or no website development experience. Because of this, while I may be able to make a template screen layout that will adjust to varying screen widths, I cannot expect most user's content to fall in line with that. That means that while I can make the template adjust to varying screen sizes, users will frequently use fixed pixel sizes for images in their content which will prevent said adjustment, because the third party editor we use defaults to fixed pixel sizes. Thus, even if I set the % width of the big content area on the right, if users put a full width picture in the content sized in pixels, then the width will not adjust. I could just push responsibility for this back on users to fix, but many users will not want to fiddle with it. What I will probably do in the future is create a class name ("fluid" or "responsive") that users can apply to their content as a way to "opt in" to having my code massage their content to force it to adjust for varying screen widths. However, that code has yet to be created.

Nothing worthwhile is ever easy. ;) I would like to be able to say, "Oh yeah, I will have that done next week.", but hopefully, you can understand some of the issues that I will need to address to get this right.
Regards,

Steve James, DTM
FreeToastHost System Developer
Officer Emeritus, Mindful Communicators (Club 1966, District 52) A President's Distinguished Club for each of the last 10 years.

>>> Please put your club number in your forum profile. CLICK here to edit your profile.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Jane Atkinson, LindaMann
Last edit: by SteveTheTechie.
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Mobile friendly 8 years 11 months ago #48901

  • Jessica.Hentges
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Okay, I guess I was thinking that you had created the site template. Now that I understand you are working within restraints, I completely understand the difficulty. Code takes time to work with, especially when it is not your own. Thank you for the more in depth explanation. I like to know the why behind things in detail, thank you. I am a very curious learner.
Jessica Silhavy, DTM
Web Admin
District 77
toastmasters77.org
Vocalizers Toastmasters Club - Club #5175
vocalizers.toastmastersclubs.org
Last edit: by Jessica.Hentges.
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Mobile friendly 8 years 11 months ago #48902

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Thank you for the tips. I use all of them already.


Even though the site design is not currently responsive to mobile devices, you can still do a few things to make it easier for users on mobile devices.

My #1 would be to put your meeting date, time and location very near the top of the home page, in slightly larger font, so it is easily found and readable (this is actually good advice for any club site :-)

#2 would be on the directions page, be sure you are taking advantage of the Google maps feature. The map is set up so that if you touch it on a smart phone, it brings up the Google map on your phone, again, making it easier to use on the small screen.

# 3 would be to avoid large images on the home page, as they take up lots of space on a small screen.
George'

Jessica Silhavy, DTM
Web Admin
District 77
toastmasters77.org
Vocalizers Toastmasters Club - Club #5175
vocalizers.toastmastersclubs.org
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Mobile friendly 8 years 7 months ago #52365

  • Paul - VPPR - WESTbocaTM
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Is the freetoasthost going mobile ever ?

New here...

P
Paul Finkelstein
VP PR
West Boca Toastmasters
District 47 PR TEAM
DIV C PR Team
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
WHERE LEADERS ARE MADE
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Mobile friendly 8 years 7 months ago #52410

  • LindaMann
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Read Steve's email above response above for answers...
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