GitP Smartphone App? Can Haz? :3

[Trog]

Is that any chance of making a GitP Forums Android App or the like? On my phone everything here is so tiny and there a lot of pinch-zooming and scrolling going on and I just thought "It be awesome if there was an app for GitP where I could just scroll through things without all the zooming to read things properly."

Anyhow, I'm sure it's probably the last thing on your minds but uh... yeah. It would rock. 'M jus' sayin'.

[Rawhide]

Is that any chance of making a GitP Forums Android App or the like? On my phone everything here is so tiny and there a lot of pinch-zooming and scrolling going on and I just thought "It be awesome if there was an app for GitP where I could just scroll through things without all the zooming to read things properly."

Anyhow, I'm sure it's probably the last thing on your minds but uh... yeah. It would rock. 'M jus' sayin'.

Problem is, to create one would be rather expensive. How much would you pay for such an app and how many other people would also buy it?

[Mystic Muse]

Problem is, to create one would be rather expensive. How much would you pay for such an app and how many other people would also buy it?

Probably not NEARLY enough to make it cost efficient. I know that I'm perfectly fine just zooming in and scrolling.

Would mostly depend on what the app itself would cost. I'm iffy about buying one dollar apps and don't even consider buying apps above that price most of the time.

It would also depend on how many people actually browse the forums, and how many of them have smart phones/Ipods/whatever with which to buy the app for. Maybe 10,000 to 15,000 members tops?

[Trog]

Problem is, to create one would be rather expensive. How much would you pay for such an app and how many other people would also buy it?

Obviously I don't have the answers to that. I imagine the mods have a better handle on how many regularly active posters there are on here as a start. A little market research for how much the average app costs for the end user times the percentage of regular forumites that access the forums using a single mobile platform would give you your possible max payoff. An estimate for how much it would cost to develop such an app would yield a simple doable/not doable answer. Or at least a potential user price for such an app for it to be profitable. If it's not an outrageous price then... *shrug* Of course the real trick here is getting the proper numbers to weigh all these things against.

Still... it would be nice.

EDIT: I should add that, barring that, I know it is possible in many cases to detect the max width in pixels of the device accessing a website and adjusting the layout accordingly by rerouting the browsing device to an alternate layout of the site - say one with different CSS or what have you. Doing something like placing the sidebar at the top to reduce the layout to one column and setting the column to be the full width of the browsing device, increasing the default font sizes, perhaps turning off signatures or the like - those sorts of things. This wouldn't be an app then, but merely a recoding of the site when it is being accessed by devices with small screens and adjusting accordingly. Even that would help immeasurably.

EDIT2: A 30 second Google search got me this link which describes what I am talking about in my edit above. It may not be the most comprehensive account of this sort of thing but it gives you the basic idea. Linky

Oh hell, one more EDIT: Here is an example of a page using media queries in the way I am talking about. Load it and resize your browser window to see how the layout adapts. Demo Linky

[TheLaughingMan]

Still... it would be nice.

There's no price on dreams, my friend.

...Yet.

[Bobby Archer]

Budgets for even a simple smartphone app can apparently run to $10k or more. Most of that is labor, but we'd still need someone to put in that time. The count at the bottom of the board reads ~53,000 members. I'm guessing most of those aren't active accounts. Of those that are, I doubt a large number want or need this app enough to pay for it. And that group is going to be divided between iPhone, Android, and Blackberry.

Personally, I think the potential audience at GitP is too small for a forums app.

I agree that it would be nice, but we're not the group to make it happen. A general vBulletin smartphone app would probably have a better chance at profitability.

[Rawhide]

There is already the "Archive" button down at the bottom right of the page. That might make the pages more readable for you.

Changing the CSS requires major changes to the templates, which are not high on our priority list at the moment.

A generic vBulletin app won't be generic enough, especially since we are currently using the latest version of an older edition. There are too many variations from board to board and version to version.

[Trog]

Personally, I think the potential audience at GitP is too small for a forums app.

I agree that it would be nice, but we're not the group to make it happen. A general vBulletin smartphone app would probably have a better chance at profitability.

Probably correct.

As a more reasonable (and I would imagine certainly cheaper) alternative, see my edits above on recoding this site to be adaptive to the device using it. This alone would solve the majority of the visual/navigation problems when accessing this site via phone.

EDIT (Gah! More edits! =P ): @^ Ooooo! Archive button. Nifty!

[Zeb The Troll]

The archives make it easier for reading stuff you know where to find, but it doesn't track your subscriptions or allow you to reply or even subscribe to threads you want to follow.

I know Alarra and I both struggle to read the forums on our Android phones while we're not at home and I'd definitely be willing to pay for something that would make it more smartphone friendly (well, I'd probably pay a dollar or two anyway). I have a sneaking hunch that The Giant isn't going to be keen on the idea of selling a smartphone app though. Call me crazy.

Now, if only there were an enterprising Playgrounder who knew how to do it and would be willing to do it for free...

[Tyndmyr]

It strikes me as a PITA to write an app for. Low payoff. The site is already pretty good, except that you have to zoom in a lot. It's text heavy. There's no real way to get around that. Plenty of sites just cease to work on smartphones(pizza hut, I hate you), but this one is pretty functional, just requires a few extra button presses. It's one of the sites where browsing on my droid really doesn't bother me.

<- Your friendly neighborhood developer.

[Occasional Sage]

In a similar vein, what about a panel-by-panel release of the comic itself, a la Erfworld's smartphone app? I find that a very good way to read the comic on a mobile device, and very worth the money.

[Roland St. Jude]

It strikes me as a PITA to write an app for. Low payoff. The site is already pretty good, except that you have to zoom in a lot. It's text heavy. There's no real way to get around that. Plenty of sites just cease to work on smartphones(pizza hut, I hate you), but this one is pretty functional, just requires a few extra button presses. It's one of the sites where browsing on my droid really doesn't bother me.

<- Your friendly neighborhood developer.

I agree.

For me the site looks and works pretty well on my Droid. The buttons all work and the amount of zooming seems minimal. The comic is a bit harder to enjoy on the phone, because you can't see the whole thing at once and there is a bit more scrolling. But I'm not sure how an app would let you see the whole thing at once or how one could effectively chop up the comic into individual panels, given the way speech bubbles cross over panel lines or outside side panels. And that's even if Rich was interested in doing that, which I can't imagine he would be. I probably wouldn't pay for a smartphone app, though I've been known to throw a couple bucks at something just out of curiosity, so maybe.

And just so you know where I'm coming from I have the old, original Droid, and my old, original eyes.

[Maxios]

On the IPhone, I have no problem browsing the forums (and the comic).

[NerfTW]

In a similar vein, what about a panel-by-panel release of the comic itself, a la Erfworld's smartphone app? I find that a very good way to read the comic on a mobile device, and very worth the money.

That would be a MASSIVE amount of work. You're talking about 800 comics of 9-15 panels each, with word balloons crossing panels. An undertaking like that would be in the realm of a $100 app, just based on the manpower involved.

Erfworld probably set that up early. It's far easier to start something like that at the beginning of a comic's run than to do it after 8 years.

[crimson77]

On the IPhone, I have no problem browsing the forums (and the comic).

I second that. I use my iphone to read the comics and post. I find no problem posting with my iphone. It allows me to post and read the forums when I would not be able to otherwise (e.g., waiting in line, at work, etc). My only complaint is not one the forum could do anything about, I wish the Iphone had a better spellchecking program.

[Tyndmyr]

Ah, yes...that annoys the heck out of me. It's the primary reason I browse using my droid. The other reason is the flash hatred...

And yeah, I've got an original droid as well. Good 'lil phone.

[Weezer]

GianitITP is one of the best sites I browse with my phone. It's mostly simple text and you can turn off both sigs and avatars if your phone doesn't like them. I'm using a nokia e71x, a non touchscreen phone, and my browser automatically wraps text to fit the width of my screen which makes browsing threads easy.

[tassaron]

That would be a MASSIVE amount of work. You're talking about 800 comics of 9-15 panels each, with word balloons crossing panels. An undertaking like that would be in the realm of a $100 app, just based on the manpower involved.

Erfworld probably set that up early. It's far easier to start something like that at the beginning of a comic's run than to do it after 8 years.

Yeah, someone would have to go through and isolate every panel in the original Illustrator files (or whatever format they may be in). To get it down in any sane amount of time would take a ton of money and work that isn't reasonable to expect from a small business. :/

Most realistic option is a mobile version of the site, not an app. I can imagine that that might take a lot of work, though, given how old this site is. It probably wasn't built from the ground-up to make something like that easy.

It's also worth remembering that, of the small percentage of members who have a smartphone, only an even smaller percentage would be willing to pay for an app instead of suffering the inconvenience of the web browser. I certainly wouldn't buy it.

[pendell]

Hmm...

what would be involved in building a small app that might actually be useful? Something that could be done on a shoestring budget by one person in their spare time?

I'm asking because I need to learn to write phone apps. Even a free app would have benefit to me because it would provide useful training that could later be applied to apps I would charge actual money for.

The other problem, too, is that I have a blackberry, not a droid. So we'd need to be able to make something that would work cross-platform.

It would be nice if there already was some sort of generic cross-platform app we could adapt for the playground.

Not promising anything. Just thinking aloud. But would be willing to consider working on it if we could make the requirements scope small enough I could actually do it :).

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Bobby Archer]

I'll preface this by saying that I am by no means an expert in any kind of programming and my following statement comes from info gleaned from a few Google searches and conversations here and elsewhere in the forum. Someone with more experience should correct me if I am wrong.

Hmm...

what would be involved in building a small app that might actually be useful? Something that could be done on a shoestring budget by one person in their spare time?

The problem with that is, for the functionality that's being talked about in this thread, I don't think there is a solution that is both cheap in terms of money and time. The amount of complexity required for an app that will interact with either the forums or the comic (or both) prohibits a cheap, easy, quick solution.

[The Giant]

I would not even consider spending one minute or one dollar on such a product unless I myself had a smartphone with which to check that it was satisfactory. As I am a borderline-technophobic luddite who avoids everything that was built after 2000 or so and does not even own a regular cell phone, the probability of that happening anytime soon is just about nil.

That aside, right now we don't have the time or money to make badly needed changes to the CMS here on the web. Developing a second one is just out of the question.

[ufis]

Problem is, to create one would be rather expensive. How much would you pay for such an app and how many other people would also buy it?

The site owner/admins could always look at http://www.tapatalk.com/ to implement this.

At least one of the other forum I visit use it, and they provide the app for their forum for free on android market.

From http://www.tapatalk.com/plugin.php

FAQ from Forum Owner:
Q: How much does it cost?

A: As a forum owner you are free to activate Tapatalk in your forum, and you are free to remove/deactivate it anytime you want to.

Rebranding the app for a specific forum seems to have some cost though
http://www.tapatalk.com/rebranding.php

Final edit:
From a quick look it seems that the forum owner can load the tapatalk skin for free.
Users can then download the default tapatalk app (premium app though it seems there is a free version too) and use that to browse the forums. You can only use tapatalk app to view a forum that has the tapatalk skin activated. Do NOT buy the app to view this forum if this forum has not loaded the tapatalk skin.
A rebranded app for your specific forum would come at a cost, but there is a free solution available (free skin and let users download the app at their own cost if they want it).

[Bobby Archer]

The site owner/admins could always look at http://www.tapatalk.com/ to implement this.

At least one of the other forum I visit use it, and they provide the app for their forum for free on android market.

As I understand things, the main problem with this is that the vBulletin software GitP uses is modified from from standard, which, by Tapatalk's site, means it might not be compatible and installing the skin could be a huge runaround. Add to that the fact that not too many people on the forums will want to spend $3 for the app, means it probably isn't worth the time it would take to implement.

I would not even consider spending one minute or one dollar on such a product unless I myself had a smartphone with which to check that it was satisfactory. As I am a borderline-technophobic luddite who avoids everything that was built after 2000 or so and does not even own a regular cell phone, the probability of that happening anytime soon is just about nil.

That aside, right now we don't have the time or money to make badly needed changes to the CMS here on the web. Developing a second one is just out of the question.

This pretty much closes the issue, I'd say.

[Zeb The Troll]

Add to that the fact that not too many people on the forums will want to spend $3 for the app

I think you're underestimating how many people will spend $3 on a whim. I think you're spot on with every other point though, and, though it seems like the most viable option, it's still not viable enough.

It does look like a cool idea though, if I were, you know, building a website + forum now.

extra italics!

[ufis]

As I understand things, the main problem with this is that the vBulletin software GitP uses is modified from from standard, which, by Tapatalk's site, means it might not be compatible and installing the skin could be a huge runaround. Add to that the fact that not too many people on the forums will want to spend $3 for the app, means it probably isn't worth the time it would take to implement.

I do not know the state of these forums or how easy it will be to implement this solution. I merely posted a solution I have seen implemented on other sites using vBulletin.

This was before ...

This pretty much closes the issue, I'd say.

... I was ninja'd by The Giant :)

But I continued to add more info to my post. Maybe in future the situation will change. At least one solution is now known, viable or not as it may be.

[lesser_minion]

Hmm...

what would be involved in building a small app that might actually be useful? Something that could be done on a shoestring budget by one person in their spare time?

I'm asking because I need to learn to write phone apps. Even a free app would have benefit to me because it would provide useful training that could later be applied to apps I would charge actual money for.

I believe xkcd is the usual target for "hello world"-esque phone apps, mainly because Randall doesn't particularly mind people doing so.

You'd need the Giant's permission to make an app that interacts with OotS itself, and he's already stated his views on the matter.

The other problem, too, is that I have a blackberry, not a droid. So we'd need to be able to make something that would work cross-platform.

I believe that could get complicated.

As far as I'm aware, each kind of smartphone provides a completely different framework for apps, based on a different programming language and a different API. I believe Android and WP7 don't completely require you to stick to the framework, however -- Android has had Python ported to it, for example.

[Rawhide]

The site owner/admins could always look at http://www.tapatalk.com/ to implement this.

At least one of the other forum I visit use it, and they provide the app for their forum for free on android market.

From http://www.tapatalk.com/plugin.php


Rebranding the app for a specific forum seems to have some cost though
http://www.tapatalk.com/rebranding.php

Final edit:
From a quick look it seems that the forum owner can load the tapatalk skin for free.
Users can then download the default tapatalk app (premium app though it seems there is a free version too) and use that to browse the forums. You can only use tapatalk app to view a forum that has the tapatalk skin activated. Do NOT buy the app to view this forum if this forum has not loaded the tapatalk skin.
A rebranded app for your specific forum would come at a cost, but there is a free solution available (free skin and let users download the app at their own cost if they want it).

Problems here include server load, security, stability, privacy, testing, and the forcing of users to pay for a third party app to use these features.

[Talya]

does not even own a regular cell phone,

I thought i was the only one left...

[Trog]

I would not even consider spending one minute or one dollar on such a product unless I myself had a smartphone with which to check that it was satisfactory. As I am a borderline-technophobic luddite who avoids everything that was built after 2000 or so and does not even own a regular cell phone, the probability of that happening anytime soon is just about nil.

That aside, right now we don't have the time or money to make badly needed changes to the CMS here on the web. Developing a second one is just out of the question.

Heh! Perfectly understandable.

But still: Awwww... ( v.v)

[Occasional Sage]

I would not even consider spending one minute or one dollar on such a product unless I myself had a smartphone with which to check that it was satisfactory. As I am a borderline-technophobic luddite who avoids everything that was built after 2000 or so and does not even own a regular cell phone, the probability of that happening anytime soon is just about nil.

That aside, right now we don't have the time or money to make badly needed changes to the CMS here on the web. Developing a second one is just out of the question.

Hoorah for Luddites! (says one guy on a computer to another)