m.boards.ie

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Has the mobile version been taken down? M.boards, I mean.

Ghost Train

M.boards.ie does seems to be broken, hope it comes back

Snake

Ghost Train wrote: »

M.boards.ie does seems to be broken, hope it comes back

It's if touch.boards.ie now?

suicide_circus

Similar issue here but I am trying to use the m. site and it keeps going to the desktop and then the touch site, neither of which I like. *cries*

Annasopra

Dav wrote: »

I can confirm that this is a cookie related setting. If you've tried changing by clicking the link on the bottom of the apge and that hasn't worked for you, please try clearing the cookies in your browser and go to either touch. or www. depending on your preference and the cookie will once again be set.

Any idea why m.boards ie is redirecting to touch.boards.ie?

Dav

bluewolf wrote: »

:mad::(:mad::(:(

Out of interest, why are you still using it? It looks *awful* in comparison to touch. I has served it's purpose admirably, but the fork has been stuck in it.

Snake

Dav wrote: »

Out of interest, why are you still using it? It looks *awful* in comparison to touch. I has served it's purpose admirably, but the fork has been stuck in it.

I tried using m.boards.ie and it made me sad :c

coffee_cake

Dav wrote: »

Out of interest, why are you still using it? It looks *awful* in comparison to touch. I has served it's purpose admirably, but the fork has been stuck in it.

I cross posted in site dev, but the gist is that I love how simple it is. I don't want pictures or icons or lights or avatars or flashy things when I'm on the phone, I want simple text that's quick to check different fora and the PM inbox thing on m.b is much, much easier to use than the one on touch which has too much whitespace and doesn't differentiate properly between the PMs imo.

I don't need to see my avatar on the phone, and I don't need to see everyone else's either.

An asterisk to tell me I have a PM is more than sufficient instead of red yokes

Touch. doesn't have a "go to last page of thread" option

If I click on my subscribed forums list, the touch site can barely fit 8 fora on the screen before I have to start scrolling. The m.b site fits 18 forums on it and would have room for more if I wanted more. So that's 3 times as much scrolling I have to do on touch before I even start using anything.

When I do go into a forum, m.boards has 2 alternating colours for each thread making them much easier to look through, and white if the thread is locked and yellow if it's a sticky. Touch has white, white, white everywhere, and more of it. The space given to each thread listing is at least twice the space given to it on m.b which once again means a lot more scrolling and difficulty focusing. On a computer, that's an inconvenience. On the phone, all that white and scrolling and difficulty focusing on any one thread turns me off using it altogether.

I can probably go on all day...

Is there any convincing you guys to change your mind on it particularly since you didn't realise so many people were using it in the first place?

The Hill Billy

Happened to quite a few recently. Clearing your cache seems to sort it. Did for me anyway.


-- Sent from boards.ie mobile --

Dav

I really appreciate this sort of proper and well thought out feedback - mostly we get "it's ****" from people and so if they're not prepared to give a proper and useful reason why to us, we can't help.

However, you fly in the face of conventional and accepted UI/UX thinking. There's no "right and wrong" to this sort of personal preference, but there are "accepted wisdoms." Please keep in mind that the people we have designing these things are really good at what they do and have been doing it for not only us but the other 3 companies in our group and that's a *massive* number of eyeballs that see and use their work every day. Our mobile traffic, as well as everyone's is growing at a phenomenal rate. As an example, you say that you don't want avatars and pictures and so on, but these are a part of this site and if we said we were getting rid of them, there'd be way more fuss than us saying m.'s going away.

However, there are elements of what you've raised that I can look at integrating, so again, thank you. I'm going to see if we can schedule in some review time on touch. in the next few weeks.

bluewolf wrote: »

I cross posted in site dev, but the gist is that I love how simple it is. I don't want pictures or icons or lights or avatars or flashy things when I'm on the phone, I want simple text that's quick to check different fora and the PM inbox thing on m.b is much, much easier to use than the one on touch which has too much whitespace and doesn't differentiate properly between the PMs imo.

I don't need to see my avatar on the phone, and I don't need to see everyone else's either.

An asterisk to tell me I have a PM is more than sufficient instead of red yokes

Touch. doesn't have a "go to last page of thread" option

If I click on my subscribed forums list, the touch site can barely fit 8 fora on the screen before I have to start scrolling. The m.b site fits 18 forums on it and would have room for more if I wanted more. So that's 3 times as much scrolling I have to do on touch before I even start using anything.

When I do go into a forum, m.boards has 2 alternating colours for each thread making them much easier to look through, and white if the thread is locked and yellow if it's a sticky. Touch has white, white, white everywhere, and more of it. The space given to each thread listing is at least twice the space given to it on m.b which once again means a lot more scrolling and difficulty focusing. On a computer, that's an inconvenience. On the phone, all that white and scrolling and difficulty focusing on any one thread turns me off using it altogether.

I can probably go on all day...

Is there any convincing you guys to change your mind on it particularly since you didn't realise so many people were using it in the first place?

coffee_cake

Dav wrote: »

As an example, you say that you don't want avatars and pictures and so on, but these are a part of this site and if we said we were getting rid of them, there'd be way more fuss than us saying m.'s going away.

No no... I meant I don't want them on my phone. Because the phone has a much, much smaller screen than a PC and given the reduced time, space etc when I'm using it, they seem a waste on the mobile site. Every added image is more data and loading time for me and bearing in mind that I'm most likely to be using the phone on the go in the first place that's a problem.

Now don't get me wrong, I appreciate some of the features of the touch site like how I can thank a post without having the whole page reload, I can check who thanked things, I can see threads started by me a lot more easily.
I wouldn't suggest getting rid of the touch site either (in my own ideal universe I mean ), I'm sure it's great for tablets and bigger phones. I just prefer having the m.b as an option.


If you really want to get rid of m.b can I suggest an option on a user CP or something to apply to touch site only to disable - for a user who selects this option only:
- displaying images (keep them link-only like on m.b, SERIOUSLY cuts down loading time and space issues)
- displaying gifs, keep them text only
- displaying avatars in PMs and on fora

And the issues I noted above regarding alternating background colours and above all, the spacing stuff.

sorry, to add to that, m.b has different colours for quote boxes to main posts - also v helpful and less difficult to focus. I was also trying to figure out why reading a thread seems much harder in touch and again it seems to be the glare of all the whitespace. The mb has a soft colour background. PMs are also separated by colour background

fred funk }{

Very disappointed. I find the mobile site very simple and easy to navigate through. Not a fan of the touch site.

Dav

There were a number of posts about this across several threads, so I just grabbed them all into one place to make it easier to manage.

Just for reference, here's the announcement that m. is being switched off.

ChewChew

I'm with blue wolf on this... I'm pretty gutted that m.b is going. I do a lot of my internetting on my phone and to lose m.b is not going to make browsing boards enjoyable. I've tried the touch site a million times but I just can't do it. .when m.b goes, can't seeing me being converted even though I've tried. Shame to see this go

DoctorEdgeWild

I also posted over in site development but if it helps you guys work, here's what I love about m.boards:

I use it on my phone and tablet over touch/full. The main reason being how lightweight and simple it is.

Name of poster - body of text - quote/report/thank.

Really simple boarding at it's easiest, probably as I am a longer term computer user and remember newsgroups/chat rooms when it wasn't entirely p0rn.

No pictures, avatars, gifs etc. However, we have the option to click on them if we want to.

I can use it on any phone/device, old or brand new and the browsing experience is crisp, clean and effortless. No loading, partial loading or drop downs/roll overs.

Thanks for keeping it alive for so long anyhow, hopefully some of the feedback can be used to make some kind of 'bare bones' skin for touch? Not sure how these things work but thanks again. :-)

The Hill Billy

Losing m. will really reduce my time on boards - touch is far less user-friendly & takes much longer to navigate. m. is such an easy to use interface, lots displayed on screen (Galaxy user) & for all the other reasons that bluewolf mentioned.

Also, m. is great if I am stuck in a meeting bored silly & fancy a little browse on the laptop, but want to look like I am working. With such a plain interface it looks like I am just on an ancient work wiki.

gandalf

I posted this on the thread in the Site Development forum.

To reiterate what others have said. I use m.boards.ie because it is very agile, quick to respond, simple and easy to navigate on my Mobile and Tablet.

I have tried touch but from a UI/UX point of view imho it is an abject failure on a mobile device. Its not very responsive, it is hard to navigate and very very clunky (if thats a technical term). Compared to m.boards.ie which does use by todays standards an outdated design but a design that is very effective because of its simplicity, low bandwidth overhead and one that allows the user to get to the content that they actually want which is the discussion.

Rather than shut m.b down with such short notice as appears to be the plan I think at a minimum touch should be amended with some of the feedback given here to allow the user to turn off the unnecessary "extras" to help speed up its use. Personally I believe m.b should be kept as is imho the most efficient method to delivery the actual content that we want to read to our mobile devices, the discussions themselves. I do concede that this may not fit into the commercial side of the strategy for boards.ie where ad revenue is important.

surpy

the touch site has some serious flaws, lets be honest.
while im not too sad to see m.b.ie go, im less happy about being stuck with touch now

click a link in a page, then click back.
the page jumps around for around 10 seconds while it reloads (randomly providing the swirling wheel image) then jumps around some more!
eventuall;y settling, seemingly randomly on either the last post you read or the point i opened the thread

reply to a post
try to move the cursor around - good luck!
and just keep your fingers crossed that it wont move on its own
try paste some text and guarantee it will jump

the layout
between on screeen keyboard and status bars, there isnt mcuh real estate available on most phones
fillling it with large ads, a huge logo and lots of white space is not a good idea

maybe this works great on 10" ipads but its not functional on every single 3"-5" android device ive ever owned

im not some luddite who cant move forward, m.b.ie is a step up from having some SMS me the latest threads on boards! but at least its quick, readable and doesnt freak out

this is what i get on my current stand in phone, an S3 (can you please enable images and links for new users with a lower limit that 50 posts, do you want me to spam!)
imgur.com/a5Hbuqp

IITYWYBMAD

Totally agree with everything everyone has said about the m site. The touch site is no replacement for the mobile site. Serious bug issues with touch, and it's not really fit for purpose. It's non-responsive and (imo) has had no real mobile optimisation.

m.b.ie has everything I want in a BB mobile site, and I'm sure I speak for others when I say that I will not be using boards.ie on my mobile/tablet when the mobile site is gone.

I understand the 'pain' with supporting legacy systems across multiple platforms, but given the supposed increase in mobile access to boards, it seems a silly move to alienate a huge number of new and old users.

If the current bunch of apps ( and the way they handle data) from Distilled are anything to go by, I also won't be using a boards.ie app either, should it come to pass.

_Brian

My small feedback is that for me anyway the touch site doesnt seem reactive. It doesnt resize to the phone screen and its like viewing a regular site on the phone.
I find this off putting as there is the constant need to scroll over and back along with up and down..

Maybe I've a wrong setting or something??

Dav

OK, I need to re-iterate that m. is breaking things *right now* and that we don't have the time to get redevelopment of touch. done at the moment (it's probably 4 weeks away as the other projects are too far in to stop and re-focus on this one).

Can all the people who say that touch. is has bugs please report these bugs and I'll see to it that they're entered into our internal bug tracker. I use touch. most days on my phone (Chrome on a HTC One M7) and I don't run into problems so if others are, then something must be going wrong somewhere. If we don't know about problems then we can't fix them folks.

gandalf

TBH Dav if touch is the only choice then I probably won't bother accessing boards via my mobile or tablet. I don't have the time or inclination to do the testing work that should have been done on the product before it was released to the masses.

I understand that m.b is "breaking things" but its a shame that the m.b is being mothballed because it delivers exactly what is required for a light app, the content that users want to access on the site. Any indication on what m.b is breaking or is that information "classified", if its breaking touch for example maybe you should mothball touch

I realise that with every system things have to change and move on. If touch delivered what it should then this wouldn't be an issue. However it doesn't for me and it's obvious now that I am not the only one (**** I sound like a John Lennon song!).

coffee_cake

More time before switching it off to redevelop touch before making it compulsory would be highly appreciated and the right way to go imo

Your designers might be experts and used to their work but we are the users who use boards on our phones all the time

I am with gandalf in that my boards usage will have to decrease dramatically on the phone if I'm stuck with current touch.ie. Who knows, maybe some people will view that as a good thing... ^^

Dav

Touch. has been live since June 2011 - when was the last time some of you tried it out?

Like I said, I use the site almost every day and I don't see bugs. Do you really think that if we were aware of any bugs we'd have left them there?

Bluewolf's previous feedback seems to be the crux of the issue for those who are not happy to use touch. and so that means we have something to work with. That's not a bug list though, that's a feature request list as the issues are mostly based around "I don't like the way you present this content to me" rather than some technical issue. Getting bugs fixed is priority work for our tech team, but implementing new features will require a project plan and all the rest that goes with it which is why these things aren't going to get addressed before we switch m. off.

I want to help here folks, not turn anyone off accessing the site I'm just trying to make it clear as to why things are being done this way.

DoctorEdgeWild

I've had no actual bugs using touch, it's just slower to load and harder to browse/look through quickly. This is usually in a no wifi/low coverage area (I live/work in a fairly rural area).

I'll certainly give it a go but if there's a possibility of a slimmed down version (even if it removes some features/functionality), that may be a good way to drag us m.boards users into the future.

Totally understand the needs of the majority to be considered ahead of the minority though, we shall adapt!

gandalf

Dav wrote: »

Touch. has been live since June 2011 - when was the last time some of you tried it out?

Two days ago when m.b was down.

Like I said, I use the site almost every day and I don't see bugs. Do you really think that if we were aware of any bugs we'd have left them there?

No I doubt you would and maybe your comfortable with the UI in touch. m.b delivers what I want from a lite browser solution. It's a Ronseal situation, it does exactly what its says on the tin.

Bluewolf's previous feedback seems to be the crux of the issue for those who are not happy to use touch. and so that means we have something to work with. That's not a bug list though, that's a feature request list as the issues are mostly based around "I don't like the way you present this content to me" rather than some technical issue. Getting bugs fixed is priority work for our tech team, but implementing new features will require a project plan and all the rest that goes with it which is why these things aren't going to get addressed before we switch m. off.

Bluewolfs post basically articulates the main issues with touch at the moment.

As per Bluewolfs post above I would like the powers that be to reconsider shutting down m.b until some of the issues with touch have been addressed. If its four weeks as you say Dav that shouldn't be too onerous an execution extension on m.b?

I want to help here folks, not turn anyone off accessing the site I'm just trying to make it clear as to why things are being done this way.

Dav I am sure you're not looking to stop people using the site but the reality is that some of us will curtail our mobile use of the site if we are forced to use Touch in its current format.

coffee_cake

Loading pictures as default in a thread and loading avatars absolutely everywhere including my PM inbox (which isn't even done on the main site) is not just a presentation issue it's a data and loading time issue.

Some of what I've said is about presentation. Some of it is about time spent trying to do anything on the site drastically increasing on touch.b vs m.b. and familiarity or otherwise with the layout is not the cause of that time increase.

I have also been using it the last couple of days when m.b was down.

Batesy

I'd have preferred if the touch version was shut down rather than m.b leaving us with either full boards or mobile.

For now I'm using full boards on my mobile as that's easier to use than touch and that in itself doesn't make sense!

_Brian

In times when more and more usage is going towards mobile devices its incredable to see a website choosing to shut down its mobile element because it will be easier for the maintenance staff rather than its not needed.

The touch version is not mobile friendly. Driving people back to laptop/desktop usage only is a retrograde step. I have already stopped using other forums because there was no mopbile friendly version.

surpy

Dav wrote: »

Touch. has been live since June 2011 - when was the last time some of you tried it out?

Like I said, I use the site almost every day and I don't see bugs. Do you really think that if we were aware of any bugs we'd have left them there?

Bluewolf's previous feedback seems to be the crux of the issue for those who are not happy to use touch. and so that means we have something to work with. That's not a bug list though, that's a feature request list as the issues are mostly based around "I don't like the way you present this content to me" rather than some technical issue. Getting bugs fixed is priority work for our tech team, but implementing new features will require a project plan and all the rest that goes with it which is why these things aren't going to get addressed before we switch m. off.

I want to help here folks, not turn anyone off accessing the site I'm just trying to make it clear as to why things are being done this way.

i use it reguarly as my phone constantly redirects me to it.
ive listed some bugs in my previous post, you dont have any "report bug" button that i have seen so please dont berate me (and other users) for not reporting these previously.

Calina

Dav wrote: »

Touch. has been live since June 2011 - when was the last time some of you tried it out?.

My iPad points at the desktop site. My phone defaults to touch and my issues with it is that it is unable to go to first unread post for me.

As a result, I spend little to no time on boards on my phone.