Talk to me about cell phones and forums

[Neil E.]

At a recent exec meeting for our club, one exec commented that he posts on facebook instead of on our forum. He wants to post his motorcycle trip report in a "real time" way. A forum is real time, however he says trying to upload pictures is too big a problem. He says facebook lets him take a photo from his phone, add some text and upload it right away. Simple and fast. He wished he could do the same with a forum.

Then there is me: old guy, no phone, no ipad, no facebook, no twitter etc. and does everything by desktop PC with a 4:3 screen (widescreens are total PITA for the automation control work I do). I gave up on laptops because of the retarded keyboard layouts, battery issues and lack of DB9 ports (USB converters are just one more thing to go wrong). When I go out on a service call, I take a micro-ATX PC with an 18" 4:3 monitor bolted to side. It does exactly what I need it to do, but I understand why young people like their new compact gadgets. A touch screen ipad would be useless for the work I do.

Currently we are on phpbb since I'm not yet adept enough with XF to switch over. I haven't had time to figure out how the responsive design function performs with all my style modifications. I expect responsive would help the mobile crowd, but how does picture uploading work with XF and phones/pads? Does the base software (testing with 3.6 now) do photo resizing automatically? Can attaching to a post be set for automatic "inline insertion"? School this dirt bike riding old fart.

 

[rainmotorsports]

Well with responsive in play photos are stored as a large size and scaled to fit the window. This is actually great for high resolution phones because you actually benifit from the pixel count.

The browser scales the site to about the same pixels per inch as the next device. 360 pixel width is common for 4.5 to 5 inch devices. But in reality the physical resolution is 1080 pixel width for say the 5 inch Nexus 5. So the image is scaled to the window but its not being displayed as if it where only 340 pixels wide its getting up to the real resolution of the space its occupying. I hope that made sense its difficult to explain.

As far as uploading it is device specific. I could never get it to work with vBulletin and Android 2.3. But with Xenforo and stock Android 5.0 with no extra apps I have 3 options when I goto upload a file. Android System which actually then allows me to select any camera app I have installed, Camcorder, and Documents which I can actually upload not only any image video music or many other files but I can actually upload from my google drive cloud storage. It varies device to device.

 

[Paul B]

I would recommend trying an online demo and inviting some of your forum members to test also.

 

[caliman]

You can only upload 1 image at a time with xF. This is a shortcoming that I hope will be addressed (soon!).

 

[Paul B]

You can only upload 1 image at a time with xF. This is a shortcoming that I hope will be addressed (soon!).

That is incorrect.

The Flash uploader supports multiple uploads.

 

[caliman]

At once?

I just tried and it could not do that.

 

[Paul B]

Yes, at once.

That has been the case for over three years: https://xenforo.com/community/threads/attachment-system-improvements-in-1-1.20557/

Since version 1 in fact.

 

[Goodfella]

On my samsung note 4 i had to take each image individually and hit "upload a file". So in order to attach two images i had to do the steps twice.

 

[caliman]

THat is exactly my experience on my Macbook and my iPhone Goodfella.

I don't have the choice as shown in that video.

I get the upload screen as shown (attached) and then I can only select one image.

 

[Goodfella]

THat is exactly my experience on my Macbook and my iPhone Goodfella.

I don't have the choice as shown in that video.

I get the upload screen as shown (attached) and then I can only select one image.

On my macbook pro using safari I have no problem selecting multiple images, only on the phone.

 

[caliman]

I am using Chrome on my macbook.

 

[Paul B]

The device and browser need to support Flash and you must have it enabled in your account preferences.

 

[Goodfella]

Im on chrome right now and its working. Dumb question but when selecting images are you holding down "command" button?

 

[caliman]

I was using 'command' button.

I figured out the Macbook Chrome issue - I have 'click to play' on plug-ins selected so those annoying video ads on news sites don't play. Changing this back to auto play allows me to load more than one image here (on my Macbook).

The device and browser need to support Flash and you must have it enabled in your account preferences.

So we have two guys with phones that can't do this. That is an issue no?

When you look at google analytics, aren't most people using iPhones? Isn't FLASH a dead-end with iPhones?

 

[rainmotorsports]

@caliman flash is also dead on android. I haven't tried to side load on 5.0 but pretty sure with dalvik being replaced it might not run at all. Chrome on android doesn't utilize it even if you can run it.

 

[Goodfella]

@caliman flash is also dead on android. I haven't tried to side load on 5.0 but pretty sure with dalvik being replaced it might not run at all. Chrome on android doesn't utilize it even if you can run it.

Im using android 4.2.2 and its not working.. Chrome browser on android

 

[caliman]

Well here is hoping 1.4.4 addresses this.

 

[rainmotorsports]

Im using android 4.2.2 and its not working.. Chrome browser on android

4.1 was the last version and time period flash was supported. They killed off the ability to download it if u didn't have it installed. 4.2 can use flash if you side load the apk but browsers like chrome won't utilize it anymore.

 

[Paul B]

Well here is hoping 1.4.4 addresses this.

It's extremely unlikely that the Flash uploader will be replaced in a third point release.

 

[rainmotorsports]

@caliman not to be an android fanboy or anything but I think sorting by OS gives a different impression for some sites.


Another issue is the fact that its countered by Tapatalk users on all platforms. Unimportant if we are looking at an issue like flash. I wouldn't be surprised of most of our users have an iOS device and just don't browse with it.

On ours even the Nexus 5 which has only 2 hardware revisions. US and Global is identified as more than one device. I for example run custom firmware which may effect the result from stock. I know even worse CyanogenMod switched the device hardware identifier for the Samsung D710 between 2 versions. So you had stock, custom, another custom. Forget actual hardware variants. If you thought our ecosystem was fragmented welcome to analytics fragmentation!