Mobile friendly

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

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'

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

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.

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.

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

GeorgeMarshall wrote: 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'

Is the freetoasthost going mobile ever ?

New here...

P