Beware of using Tapatalk and Forum Runner

[vijayninel]

Hi,

Mobile devices need a different lightweight kind of UI than the styles designed for desktop/laptop computers. Therefore mobile forum UI apps like Forum Runner and Tapatalk have gained popularity with forum users and admins in recent years. However there are problems with using these apps which forum admins need to be aware of.

The problem is, and I learned this the hard way that while these apps respect default vbulletin permissions, they don't work with custom mods that alter these permissions since the APIs don't call the hooks that these mods use. So what happens is that you may find that a mod which works perfectly with desktops will not work/can be bypassed with these mobile apps.

In Tapatalk most of these hooks are just commented out. You can uncomment them and get some of the mods working but this may not work correctly or it could prevent tapatalk from functioning correctly.

So if you have some custom mods that is necessary for normal functioning of your forum then consider that these mod may not work with Tapatalk/Forum Runner and users may be able to bypass any custom permissions that you have set. In some cases this may outweigh any additional functionality that these mobile apps offer and you may have to dispense with the use of these mobile apps altogether so that your custom mods work properly.