MobileRead.com
 

I've finally found the time to bring my new site up and am curious to hear about your honest comments (yes, I can take criticisim, but please with explanation ;) ) Most of my time went into designing the frontpage:

http://www.mobileread.com

You can use the following test account: username: test/ password: test

The forum skin itself is based on a purchased premade skin, which I took as a basis for some heavy modifications (postbit etc). Before anyone cries - I paid for the copyright removal.

Some of the new features that are already in place:
- A new frontpage article system which allows editors to bring interesting articles to the frontpage
- RSS feeds from other excellent sources (can be selectively turned on/off)
- A Link Directory (which is written and installed, but not yet filled) - any volunteers?
- A Chat system that allows us to have schedule meetings for real-time chats
- A Games Arcade which allows you to have some bright moments at your work place and also to compete against your fellows
- A Mobile version which allows you to browse the full forum and to make new posts with your mobile device (a Avantgo-like version will be in place in the next few days)
- something else I forgot?

Oh, I forgot to mention: MobileRead.com deals with anything related to e-books and other kinds of content which you can access while you are on the run. (I will add a more eloquent "About Us" on the web soon).

Cheers!

Alex

Ambitious, nice work. I'm exploring it now on my PPC.

A little disappointed that I had to get back on the computer to register before I could use the mobile skin. Also having some problems learning how to use the mobile feeds-- I went to click on the "Read Me - how to use enews" and I get a 404.

Merci!

I might add 'registration directly through the mobile skin' in future. It was just too much for me to do at the moment. Note that the mobile version also has some code hacks which were not possible with template mods alone.

Oh the dreaded 404! Can you point me to where you had the bad link? Thank you!

Greets
Alex

Surely.. Go to the E-News forum on the PPC. Click on the announcement at the top that says "Read Me First to learn how to use ENews" -- 404

Thanks for finding this error. I forgot to take care of announcements in the mobile edition.

Your findings also reveals that I forgot to update the error pages for the new site design :nervous:

Will fix both later today.



Alex

Nice site, and the mobile version is quite interesting.

If Jelsoft coded vBulletin styles by the standards promoted from sites like ZenGarden and MezzoBlue, you wouldn't have to make a separate edition for mobile users. ;)

If you're unaware of the sophistication in these two sites, view the source of ZenGarden or MezzoBlue. It's extremely clean, without tables or CSS anywhere (the two elements that generally screw up visuals in a mobile browser).

CSS information is contained in referenced files, using the <link> tag with the media="screen" attribute, or via the @import function with CSS:
Mobile browsers don't support this, so will refuse reference to the CSS file, thus you're left with a standard text web page viewable by any mobile device. Take a look at ZenGarden in your mobile, it's quite something.

Yup I am also a great fan of ZenGarden. The problem I still have with CSS(2) is how the many browser bugs and hacks one must take into consideration in order to look good on most browsers.

Skin: The postbit is nice, but basically that is all you've done to the pre-made skin from what I see in terms of layout. I think you could work with it alot more and achieve some greater results. In terms of calling it 'heavy' modification of a skin, I don't think you're quite there. But basically, the skin does look quite good the way it is. :)

Forum in General: Nice. Can't suggest any improvements here. :)

Tony, thanks for your honest comments. You are right, perhaps "heavy" was not the right word. Perhaps I was also referring to the frontpage when I had this vocabulary in mind. Beside that, most of my work (I am not really a designer, honestly) went into code hacking. For instance, I wrote a system where editors could pick any thread and "pin" them to the frontpage. In addition, they could add an frontpage image to this pinned article. The images can be managed from an editor control panel, where one can quickly see which images are linked to how many and what articles. Or the editor could check if there are any "orphans", i.e. unlinked images, or he could quickly prune all images of articles older than x months (without causing those ugly 404 image dummy picture in internet explorer).

I was looking for a more unique design by hiring a designer. But it turned out to be a greater struggle that I anticpiated. It is often very difficult to explain to a designer what exactly you are looking for. I wasted like 2 or 3 months looking around before I decided to stick to my own devices :ermm:

Forumwise I am not happy yet. I have a lot of daily hits, an ok page ranking (6/10), and new members join every day. I just cannot GET most of these lurkers TO TALK! :(

Greets
Alex