Author Topic: This forum doesn't render well on mobile phones  (Read 5696 times)

galaxian

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Re: This forum doesn't render well on mobile phones
« Reply #15 on: March 28, 2026, 05:24:04 am »
I agree with you Kim. In my own personal opinion, it would be better to trade off the ability to be able to fully access this forum using legacy browsers via OS/2 and ArcaOS, and just defer to forcing users to access the forum from a modern OS and browser if they want a fully optimized and modern experience.

Obviously anyone who accesses this forum nowadays has access to a current system, and are not limited to accessing via their legacy system. I know it's a compromise of sorts, but it's one that's worth it for current security and accessibility. Myself, I wouldn't even think about relying on using my ArcaOS as the means to access this forum; my first choice always was and will be to use my mobile or desktop running a current Windows or Linux OS.

Dave Yeo

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Re: This forum doesn't render well on mobile phones
« Reply #16 on: March 28, 2026, 06:34:31 am »
Some of us like OS/2. Be a shame for the site to become inaccessible but such is life.

Pete

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Re: This forum doesn't render well on mobile phones
« Reply #17 on: March 28, 2026, 01:08:43 pm »
Hi All

Hmmmm...  A forum for OS/2 users that cannot be accessed when using OS/2.
Does not sound right... but that just leads us back to the lack of a reasonably current working browser.

The question is: Will that simply encourage me - and others - to move to whatever system is used to browse the web?


Regards

Pete




galaxian

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Re: This forum doesn't render well on mobile phones
« Reply #18 on: March 29, 2026, 03:11:26 am »
It can still be accessed Pete. It's just that certain elements may not show correctly, like the full screen text editor controls when writing posts (sorry if I am not referencing the exact function correctly).

I love ArcaOS and using OS/2, and I did access the SMF forum from ArcaOS using Firefox, and it does load and look ok. They are running the latest version of SMF.

Obviously I wouldn't expect the site to load properly if using OS/2 Web Explorer any more than using IE 7/8 on a Windows system.  :)
« Last Edit: March 29, 2026, 03:20:11 am by galaxian »

Dave Yeo

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Re: This forum doesn't render well on mobile phones
« Reply #19 on: March 29, 2026, 04:06:57 am »
I tried the SMF forum, couldn't register, couldn't post IIRC. Sure it looks fine until you use it as a forum by posting.

Alfredo Fernández Díaz

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Re: This forum doesn't render well on mobile phones
« Reply #20 on: March 29, 2026, 02:24:21 pm »
I think we are on "the SMF forum" now. I logged in using my credentials w/o changes, no need to register anew, no problem.

OTOH the last time I set up a SMF forum it was rather friendly to your using your own HTML code, which I did to integrate it seamlessly in its parent website. Rendering badly on X/Y/Z device is usually a CSS (or compatibility) problem, so pretty easy to fix with some patience.

Kim

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Re: This forum doesn't render well on mobile phones
« Reply #21 on: March 30, 2026, 11:15:54 am »
Hmmmm...  A forum for OS/2 users that cannot be accessed when using OS/2.
Does not sound right... but that just leads us back to the lack of a reasonably current working browser.

Agree, but having to choose between two bad things were using the current version of SMF does have some issues and bugs which will not be fixed including potential vulnerabilities including won't work with newer version of php which will lead us to the point that it will stop working sooner or later or that we jeopardize the site with legacy components which for example doesn't handle for example HTTP flooding very well. Hence why we've seen a lot of downtime over the last couple of months. For now we've divided up the main function to different servers just to be able to have better control when something goes wrong.

Kim

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Re: This forum doesn't render well on mobile phones
« Reply #22 on: March 30, 2026, 11:17:17 am »
Are there any good forum thread to follow for discussion around browser development for OS2 and status?

Alfredo Fernández Díaz

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Re: This forum doesn't render well on mobile phones
« Reply #23 on: March 30, 2026, 11:44:14 am »
I don't know.

As a Links user (no javascript), the worst problem I see with modern forums is that a lot tend to go from mostly pure HTML templates, which simply work everywhere if you care to tweak your CSSs, to do more and more stuff through JS (e.g. vbulletin has replaced simple links to paged threads or search results with some JS BS).

A "modern" browser where JS fails regularly can be even worse, so you probably want to choose a forum that does not rely on that for basic functionality, and the rest is a matter of editing HTML and CSS, provided the forum software lets you do it. As I said, SMF used to be pretty good in that regard, maybe it still is.

Dave Yeo

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Re: This forum doesn't render well on mobile phones
« Reply #24 on: March 30, 2026, 05:05:24 pm »
Are there any good forum thread to follow for discussion around browser development for OS2 and status?

Not really. Currently the latest browsers are based on the QtWebEngine so possibly the Qt6 development thread which came to a halt quite a while back when Paul had gone as far as he was capable of.
I've been building the various versions of Dooble, Qt5 and Qt6 but both are dependent on the QtwebEngine, which is basically Chromium and are stuck at their level. The Qt5 is more stable but older.