Taptalk is broken

[KenGordon]

On my iPhone, SB goes from screen edge to screen edge, no "whitespace".

The old "it works on my machine" bleat. Past age twelve that is not an acceptable response when someone points out a problem. The acceptable response is "how can I reproduce that so I can fix it?"

An iPhone is not an iPad. Apple made quite a big point of that when explaining to developers that a simple port of an iPhone app to the iPad was missing the point.

One size does not fit all.

While we are talking about iPhones (6s), the new post screen has so much extraneous rubbish at the top that the title of the first (ie most recent) post in the lists of posts is only just (and not completely) visible in portrait mode.

So you don't have to scroll sideways but you have a lot of up down scrolling to do.

 

[Hawkwood]

Works fine my MacBook, iPad, iPhone.

Works a crap load better than the old version did. I hated Tapatalk. Does that negate my view?

Geezus, a bit angry are we? "The old it works on my machine bleat." Sorry, but it's not my fault it works for me, for what I want it do do.

 

[teknitroxdiver]

View attachment 368793
The old "it works on my machine" bleat. Past age twelve that is not an acceptable response when someone points out a problem. The acceptable response is "how can I reproduce that so I can fix it?"

An iPhone is not an iPad. Apple made quite a big point of that when explaining to developers that a simple port of an iPhone app to the iPad was missing the point.

One size does not fit all.

While we are talking about iPhones (6s), the new post screen has so much extraneous rubbish at the top that the title of the first (ie most recent) post in the lists of posts is only just (and not completely) visible in portrait mode.

So you don't have to scroll sideways but you have a lot of up down scrolling to do.

If you scroll up closer to the top of the page you'll see that white space has vertical banner ads in it up there. It's not for nothing.

 

[JohnN]

Works fine my MacBook, iPad, iPhone.

Works a crap load better than the old version did. I hated Tapatalk. Does that negate my view?

Geezus, a bit angry are we? "The old it works on my machine bleat." Sorry, but it's not my fault it works for me, for what I want it do do.

FWIW: Works on my iPhone (Chrome) portrait and landscape

 

[HowardE]

View attachment 368793
The old "it works on my machine" bleat. Past age twelve that is not an acceptable response when someone points out a problem. The acceptable response is "how can I reproduce that so I can fix it?"

An iPhone is not an iPad. Apple made quite a big point of that when explaining to developers that a simple port of an iPhone app to the iPad was missing the point.

One size does not fit all.

While we are talking about iPhones (6s), the new post screen has so much extraneous rubbish at the top that the title of the first (ie most recent) post in the lists of posts is only just (and not completely) visible in portrait mode.

So you don't have to scroll sideways but you have a lot of up down scrolling to do.

That whitespace is where ads are above. You want ads all the way down? I can do that.

 

[doctormike]

View attachment 368793
The old "it works on my machine" bleat. Past age twelve that is not an acceptable response when someone points out a problem. The acceptable response is "how can I reproduce that so I can fix it?"

That depends. When you say "pointing out a problem" are you implying that you are reporting a bug or just that you personally prefer the old user interface to the new one. If the latter, I would just say that all design decisions are generally made with tradeoffs in mind, and that not everyone has the same preferences (as is evidenced by several people in this thread who prefer the new layout). Plus SB has gone out of it's way to provide the retro mode for people who prefer it, as well as the paid mode for people who don't want ads.

You are obviously a web professional, and I'm not trying to be snarky - I believe that you are an expert in this field, and that you know more than me. But it's not quite like walking on a reef. People really do have different but acceptable tastes in web design.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I set mine to retro and screen zoom to 150%. Less blank space since I use ad blocker. I used to get one several times a day via tapatalk. My data receiving capabilities are extremely limited during the day due to the building I am in. Tapatalk worked well. Now I just don't bother to get on until I get home. Even then I'm still not used to this layout so I don't spend much time here. I may have the window open but I don't seem to feel the urge to be as active.

 

[seaseadee]

Thanks for the positive vibes, guys! We have a hybrid style of advertising here on ScubaBoard. Most of it is not tied to impressions. We've always had issues with Tapatalk, and Google weights us differently for mobile devices depending on if we are responsive. The big reasons for us to move away from third party apps was actually Google and support. Traffic is indeed up and a lot of that is from mobile devices. I'll never be a millionaire off of ScubaBoard, but it does consume my time and costs a good bit to keep running from month to month. I have to make business decisions and I evaluate them as we progress. This was a good decision for ScubaBoard. Give the new site a few days and it will probably grow on you like it did me.

Pete, the one thing you are missing with the lack of a mobile app is the ability to "Push" notifications to users when they have PM's and responses to their posts. I used Tapatalk exclusively before this and I have given the new site a fair chance. The new site is good, but tapatalk was easier to navigate.You should consider some type of mobile app that will achieve your goals as well as give users an easier navigation experience as well as push notifications.

 

[KenGordon]

I am not at all angry. I do software (proper software, not web) for a living. When there are sues and bugs the hard bit is reproducing the bug. The people that say "it works for me" are literally useless in a professional development environment.

Tapatalk is not brilliant but has the advantages of that style of presentation. A website which is acceptable on a 2 or 4K screen will not scale down without significant work. Sometimes it is better to actually target the device rather than some vague hope it will be ok.

One of the points of html, before css, was that it was up to the target device to decide exactly how to render the page. That was of course a complete failure and there have been generations of failures since.

On the other hand if you actually design for the target machines you will get something decent on each of them. Tapatalk have vaguely done that for mobile. If you like the web style then fine, but SB has taken stuff away from users.

The providers of this forum software have a mobile app version too, so this seems to be an active decision to prioritise advertising and (maybe - I suspect it is wrong) google rankings over user experience. That is the tail wagging the dog.

Was there any UAT?

 

[JohnnyC]

I am not at all angry. I do software (proper software, not web) for a living. When there are sues and bugs the hard bit is reproducing the bug. The people that say "it works for me" are literally useless in a professional development environment.

Tapatalk is not brilliant but has the advantages of that style of presentation. A website which is acceptable on a 2 or 4K screen will not scale down without significant work. Sometimes it is better to actually target the device rather than some vague hope it will be ok.

One of the points of html, before css, was that it was up to the target device to decide exactly how to render the page. That was of course a complete failure and there have been generations of failures since.

On the other hand if you actually design for the target machines you will get something decent on each of them. Tapatalk have vaguely done that for mobile. If you like the web style then fine, but SB has taken stuff away from users.

The providers of this forum software have a mobile app version too, so this seems to be an active decision to prioritise advertising and (maybe - I suspect it is wrong) google rankings over user experience. That is the tail wagging the dog.

Was there any UAT?

This is not to be snarky, just so I understand what you're talking about. You don't like the space on the left because it's essentially unused space in your web browser? Your complaint is that the ads that you've blocked still take up the same amount of space, just without the visible ads? You want the site to scale to full screen width, but without the ads?