MetaTalk posts tagged with Mobile

3000+ Comment Megaponies

Artw — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:23:24 -0800

So, even outside of election years browser crushing 3000+ post megathreads are now a not uncommon thing - should we be looking at pagination at the 2000 comment mark? And if not pagination what else could be done to make them less of a browser crushing experience, especially on mobile?

Add Favorite fat-thumbism/ Mobile MeFi reading

Bwithh — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 21:06:31 -0800

When readin MeFi on my iPhone browser, the hardest part is adding favorites by pressing on the + sign. Fat-thumbism leads me 4 times out of 5 incorrectly to the "who favorited this post" page instead. I was just wondering if there could be a way of making just the + button bigger ( from preferences) or (easier?) perhaps an add favorites button could be added to the "who favorited this post page"? Thanks for listening to my random request/query!

Mobile site: truncated text

av123 — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 16:02:04 -0800

When browsing the front page on my phone, the text of many posts runs off the right-hand side of the screen. I've been using the mobile interface for quite a while and this issue is pretty new. I'm running Android 4.1, but I also see it in the Opera Mini simulator so I don't think it's anything on my end. If I set the "Title Font Size" preference to zero, the issue seems to go away, so I'm guessing that the bug has something to do with post titles.

When I was your age, this space was for jokes.

phunniemee — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 07:35:25 -0800

I like the sidebar on the front page, and how it shows nifty stuff and contact activity. When I'm on my phone, I don't have that, and it makes me feel sad inside. Would the powers that be consider adding a line to the menu on the mobile site that would link to the sidebar content? In my head, this looks exactly like what we have on the front page, except tinier and by itself.

comment box boldface/italics/links on an iPhone

Afroblanco — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 13:45:58 -0800

Is there any way to make boldface/italics/links easier when posting comments from an iPhone? I can't be the only person with this problem. I highlight part of my comment, and then the "cut/copy/paste" balloon covers up the boldface/italic/link buttons. And then I have to try and nudge the screen ever so slightly to get the buttons on the screen but not have them overlap the cut/copy/paste balloon AND not have it unselect the text. Half the time I just give up. Dunno if there's actually a way to address this, but I thought I'd maybe get your thoughts on the matter.

AskMe mobile not working properly since sometime Tuesday

thrasher — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 14:28:00 -0800

Some time on Tuesday, ask.metafilter.com mobile version stopped scrolling on my Motorola Droid I running Android 2.2.3. Still no worky. Regardless of horizontal or vertical orientation, I can't scroll and clicking the "skip to menu" link does nothing. Clicking the category or comments links that are available to me "above the fold" works, and the following page will scroll properly. All other subsites work just fine. It's only a problem if I'm not logged in - once I log in all is normal.

Mobile Fail

b1tr0t — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 09:10:19 -0800

Some links are failing on mobil devices. Please be careful when you post. This morning, two links central to two different posts on the blue redirect to generic search pages rather than the linked article when viewed on a mobile device such as an iPhone. The Better Off Without 'em / Simon & Schuster link from the North/South thread. The 50 feet / Bloomberg link from the Parking Lot thread. There are two things we can do about this. First, check your links on a mobile device to make sure they actually work there. Web readership is becoming increasingly mobile. Second, if you are building a mobile web version of an existing site, don't do this. These search pages are no better than 404s.

Small display bug in mobile, bold menu

Eyebrows McGee — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 17:10:13 -0800

Minor display bug in mobile style sheet on the blue only: menu at the bottom is bold, inside posts. The menu (at the bottom) is bolded when you're inside a post, but not when you're just on the blue's front page. Doesn't appear to happen on the green or the grey. Seems to be happening on every post in the blue, as far as I could tell. I'm using an Android phone. If I knew how to take a phone screen shot I would. :) It all works fine, it's just bold. Started a week or two ago, as far as I can recall.

'x new comments, show' - time elapsed?

paleyellowwithorange — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 00:39:54 -0800

When viewing threads on the mobile version of the site, how much time elapses before the 'x new comments, show' thingy displays? Same question for 'No recent updates. Reload to check for new comments.' (unless the time elapsed is the same for both).

long way to the top

de — Sun, 27 May 2012 03:13:05 -0800

It's a long way to the TOP if ya gotta scroll 'n' scroll. On mobile: it's easy to jump from the top of a long thread to the bottom of that thread. The workaround is to hit the [skip to menu] link, then scroll a short distance back up through the menu area. To skip from the bottom of a long thread back to the top of that thread is a different story. I've not discovered a workaround; and it really is a long way to the top if you have to scroll and scroll. Is a "return to top" link -- positoned down with the switch and contact links (say) -- something you'd consider implementing? Please.

Strip mobile tags

Confess, Fletch — Thu, 24 May 2012 16:34:16 -0800

Can we strip the 'm' from links to Wikipedia? In a recent post there was a link to a Wikipedia page that went directly to the mobile site. If your on a mobile device you would automatically get the mobile version so there is no reason to force people on non-mobile devices to it. I don't mean to call out this particular post, it's just an example.

Add Remove from Activity to Mobile Site?

Brandon Blatcher — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:01:02 -0800

Feature Request: "(Remove from activity") link on the Mobile site? Now that I'm spending more time on the mobile version of the site, it can be annoying to still have a thread in Recent Activity when it turns fighty or boring etc. Could a "Remove From Activity" link be put in the mobile version?

mobile me, mobile you

peachfuzz — Tue, 15 May 2012 10:39:31 -0800

I love reading MetaFilter on my phone! I have a couple discussion prompts/pony requests about it. 1) Is there a way to see tags on a post (on any sub site) through the current mobile site? If not, could there be? MetaFilter is one of the few sites I go to where the tagging system is actually helpful for finding related content and I use it all the time—so far I've been going to the regular site to look at/click through tags and then switching back to the mobile site, not perfect. 2) Ditto the sidebar. Hmm, or maybe I should just go to BestOf instead? 3) It would be awesome if there was some system in place for indicating if a Blue post is particularly mobile-friendly or not, and then a place to go on the mobile menu or a filter to see just those posts. I'm thinking this would be user-driven—maybe it's a tag or a flag category, so commenters/readers can indicate "I looked at these links on a mobile device, and they looked/loaded/worked great!" Most links in posts are readable one way or another on a phone, of course, but some are better than others, and it would be cool to know ahead of time. Thoughts?

Swiper No Swiping!

zarq — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 04:27:47 -0800

Can't swipe to favorite anymore. Did y'all disable that function? Or is it on my end? Running Android OS EC-09 on a Samsung Continuum, so build SCHI400-EC09 using the built in Browser version 2.2.2. If it matters, I'm also using GO Launcher.

Mobile stylesheet changes?

mosessis — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 16:47:25 -0800

Have there been changes made recently to the ask me mobile stylesheet? Specific things I've noticed in last couple of days: title of ask posts are now in bold, poster's followup comments no longer marked. (Android 2.2, Dolphin Browser HD 7.3.0)

Ponies on Safari

desjardins — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 06:34:20 -0800

Three ponies for mobile browsers: remove posts from Recent Activity, go to my own comment after posting it (instead of the top of the page) and the ability to make a new post. Safari on ios 5 here.

My middle finger is lazy

jeather — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 09:25:50 -0800

I use the mobile site on my phone fairly often. There's a convenient little jump to menu button, but the lovely links start with Mefi and Ask and Meta and have Recent Activity 12th, after things like My Preferences and Profile which I have never used on the mobile site. On the other hand, I use Recent Activity all the time. Can it get moved towards the top of the menu (or to the very top, like all the subparts if you are already in recent activity)? (It is my middle finger because I injured my right index finger and can't use it properly, and it hurts to try to scroll with it.)

Big text for small screens

zamboni — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 06:56:34 -0800

Does the mobile stylesheet need the  tag? The  formatting tag is great for making asides, and I use it as much as anyone, but it's moderately unreadable without zooming on a mobile device, particularly when


it's done more than once.


Text on a phone is already pretty small, and doesn't need to be any smaller. How do people feel about redefining  to be regular size (and possibly have some other form of emphasis) just for mobile devices? Side note: In the current HTML5 working draft,  means "fine print", not specifically "small text".

Mobile page changes?

clorox — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:52:46 -0800

Or not rendering properly? Has the mobile page been changed? Is it just not being formatted correctly? Here's a screenshot from Mobile Safari.

My Little Pony Request: please consider adding Favorites to the Mobile Site menu.

Songdog — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 13:58:40 -0800

My Little Pony Request: please consider adding Favorites to the Mobile Site menu. I read MetaFilter and AskMe often enough that I've got them on an iPhone home screen—the mobile site is great! But I'm also the sort of person who often uses Favorites as a bookmarking tool, and getting to my favorites is harder than it needs to be on mobile. Right now it's:

Load MeFi homepage
Skip to menu
Click on My Profile
Click on the number after "Favorites" (carefully; this page doesn't use the mobile stylesheet, but that's another request for another day)

That brings up my favorited posts. If I want my favorited comments I need to

Skip to menu again
Click on User Favorites: Comments

If you were to add Favorites to the home page Site Menu (preferably on all the subsites) it would save me at least one click and a page load every single time I do this. And if you added both Favorited Posts and Favorited Comments to the home page site menu it could save me three clicks and two page loads. I use these pages all the time. Why, just think of all the clicks you could spare me, not to mention the extra page rendering you could spare the dear server! Not everyone uses/likes Favorites, I know. You could put them near the bottom of the site menu (though I'd leave Search and Sign Out at the very bottom to keep them easy to find). But if you don't like My Little Pony Request, I'm afraid I'll have to...<sniff>...bookmark the Favorites page.

Please display tags in the mobile style sheet

alms — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 06:57:12 -0800

Pony: could we display tags in the mobile view? I just noticed that the mobile view of AskMe doesn't display the tags for the question. This came up because I had a question on my iPhone and wanted to quickly find it on my laptop to reply. I figured the tags would be the easiest way to do that, but alas no tags were shown. There are any number of places they could be shown. It would even be okay if I had to tap something to show them. But it does seem like they should be shown. We want to encourage tagging, and part of that is treating tags as a first-class component of a post.

A tiny, corralled pony

jtron — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 23:58:56 -0800

Can we mobile users have more HTML composition buttons? I would love to have buttons that let me more easily use additional HTML tags, especially small and blockquote. Even with Swype I find entering tags on my phone to be kind of a pain ; this would make it easier to keep my mobile posts looking as meadow-fresh as the ones composed on a computer and further enable my abuse of the small tag.

Restore the mobile spreadsheet

ChrisR — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 16:04:05 -0800

I accidentally disabled the Metafilter mobile stylesheet. How can I get it back?

Reply from mobile Recent Activity

bonaldi — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 14:27:04 -0800

Mobile Pony: Reply from within Recent Activity In the interests of letting people update threads they're participating in from the mobile site, would it be helpful to add a reply box at the bottom of each thread's section on mobile Recent Activity (probably hidden behind some javascript antics to prevent a page with 20 textfields)? I realise (and agree with) the position against adding features that encourage lengthy threads, but wonder if mobile is a bit different. Even in the early days the Japan threads were hard to load over GPRS, now they're slow *and* browser-killing. (Alternative idea with similar result: only displaying a thread from the last post you made when clicked through from mobile Recent Activity)

If you can read this...

ctmf — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 11:59:17 -0800

Low-priority pony: mobile stylesheet for profile pages? When I look at someone's profile page on a mobile device, I still get the zoomed-tiny normal style. I can zoom in and pan, etc., so no big deal, but a one-column format would be a bonus. So maybe, very bottom of the someday list? Maybe?