Slashdot Mirror
Experience the New Slashdot Mobile Site
After many months of effort, today we've brought the new mobile site out of beta. Featuring an interface optimized for touch devices, we think it's a huge improvement over the old mobile interface. You'll find comments easier to navigate, the most popular stories highlighted at the top of the page, and a surprisingly pleasant interface for navigating old polls. We've also spiffed up user profiles, resurrecting and improving the friend/foe system in the process. And that's not all: we're pleased to announce that you can login to Slashdot in general using various social media accounts, so if you use Facebook or Google+ there's no excuse not to enjoy the benefits of being a registered user, without the hassle of creating yet another account. Our weblog has a few more details. As always, if you encounter any issues let us know by mailing feedback@slashdot.org.
No thanks. It's pretty terrible. Can you also stop the chooser popup please? I want to use the classic site without constantly bombardment with a popup.
I think I still prefer the original.
And I don't like it. Please stop with the popup every single time I open the browser on a mobile device. I'm a creature of habit as I'm sure many others are here and the old mobile interface isn't so far a divergence from the desktop site that i'm not sure where things are. The problem with the new mobile site is it's too different. This is not a social networking site. Please don't try to make it into one.
Doesn't do anything on my phone. The "loading" bar just sits there loading, and no articles ever come up. Perhaps this was announced a bit prematurely...?
I don't respond to AC's.
Every time I have tried the new mobile site my experience was not good.
I can't even scroll down easily and when I do it jumps into an article that I didn't select.
And it doesn't look good.
Maybe it's opera mobile's fault. Maybe you need to think on this some more.
The alternative to limited government is unlimited government.
Doesn't that imply that there was a mobile site before? To the best of my understanding there was never a mobile slashdot site before now - or at least, not one that worked. I also like how the "new" mobile site launches now thta BlackBerry is considered to be a marginalized niche player - I had pointed out before that slashdot would crash most Blackberries and they always made excuses for not doing anything about it. Now that BlackBerry is no longer viewed as particularly relevant they can more easily get away with continuing to ignore it.
(and I say this as a blackberry user)
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Disable javascript and the mobile site presents a blank screen.
Some simple CSS with media queries (no javascript needed) and you could very easily have a (mobile) site that works regardless of the end-user's screen size.
Very disappointing.
It looks ok and viewing comments is generally better but it feels a bit busy. The old mobile site with improved comment views would be best.
Trying to keep /. relevant? Cheesy stuff like this is a waste of time/money. Invest in better editors that post stories the same day they occur. I don't enjoy reading things I saw on Reddit or Hacker News two days ago. Hint: it doesn't do wonders for engagement.
Please stop the nagging dialog while you're at it.
Thanks.
I've had zero problems using the desktop version on my mobile devices, especially my tablet. Now I get a popup to deal with everytime. Seriously, the regular site is fine. I appreciate the effort but it's not necessary. Honestly I'd rather you guys spent time fixing bugs in the RSS feeds that perhaps someone reported months ago and go ignored.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
m.slashdot.org only shows a blank page in Chrome on my laptop.
Best not to browse mobile on a desktop any more. Seems that only the links in the footer work now.
Captcha: saddest
Forget mobile, I'm still waiting for Slashdot to have a AAAA record.
I hate it and it's terrible and it sucks and I hate it and it's different and why did it change and it's terrible and it's different and it's not working on my obscure phone so it's useless to everyone and it sucks and nobody should ever ever ever ever ever use it ever again and I don't like it. It's stupid. I'm a nerd, so I know this sort of thing. I'll click the link later when I've got time to look at it.
"we're pleased to announce that you can login to Slashdot in general using various social media accounts,"
Why would I want to do this? On Slashdot, of all the sites on the internet, people value their privacy. Perhaps we don't want the data-miners at Facebook to monitor our slashdot usernames, cross-correlate post times against estimated work hours and calculate our estimated slacking-off coefficient to better target advertisments? I'm entirely happy to have lots of seperate accounts - it beats 'One Account to Rule them All.'
You guys did something wrong. In mobile Safari when I try to scroll down the page, it often detects my touch as a click and opens a story I don't want to read. This isn't a problem with the browser because it doesn't happen on any other mobile site. It seems to be a problem with the size of your click-able regions. I'm not sure what kind of beta testing was done, but it obviously wasn't enough.
You IGNORED every constructive comment that people made regarding this mobile interface. You INSISTED on doing it the stupid way.
Nobody is going to use your mobile interface when it makes browsing slashdot MORE WORK than before. We can't even get full article summaries on the front page! What kind of bullshit is that?
And I think it's just wonderful how every mobile user gets a banner suggesting they switch to the much more heavily ad-strewn mobile interface. Congratulations slashdot, you've managed to create a mobile interface that is WORSE than the full site on just about every level. way to ignore your customers.
Tried it once and instantly went back to classic. If it isn't broken, don't fix it.
Hmm... not impressed. Browse to the top site, the browser goes unresponsive for about 8 seconds. Browse into a story, reasonably fast. Browse back to the stories list, another 8 second lag. Can't even scroll. (Chrome on an iPad 3, Wifi)
I want more of the summary before I open
classic, I see a lot more text without clicking
new version, not enough to decide if it's worth opening for more
It has one disadvantage: I have to click away a popup which asks me to use the new site, time and again...
--frank[at]unternet.org
When I click on an item in the mobile interface there is no visual feedback and since the site is often very sluggish I end up clicking again trying to make it go where I want it to and then find out that all my clicks were received.
The mobile site lags badly while scrolling on an Android device using chrome. Any chance of fixing this?
When following a link to /., if I answer Yes to the pop-up prompt, i get redirected to http://m.slashdot.org/ and NOT the story I was linking to
*makes a-ok sign, then glares* It stinks.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Hey dummies, you broke scrolling during the beta. It simply doesn't scroll properly on the default Android browser. Something is mucked up with touch event handling. Please fix this. That is why everybody keeps saying they prefer classic mode - at least you can scroll properly.
The old mobile site wasn't really mobile, so I guess anything is better, though it's a pretty slow and heavy site it seems. It looks to be working in Firefox for Android now, that's an improvement over the last time I used the beta.
So how long until /. wraps up the new mobile site in an app wrapper and advertises a "mobile app" for iPhone and Android like seemingly every other website out there?
And yet Slashdot is still incapable of handling nonASCII characters. Unicode is over 20 years old, guys.
Is there any reason why this was done as a separate site and not with a responsive design? Separate mobile sites are the old-fashioned way of doing things.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Finally, get ready for... [rant mode on]
I am sick of having the message "would you like to try beta or classic" every time when I browse Slashdot on my Chrome browser under my Nexus. I want the *regular* site, or something as close to it as possible. I even cannot click on the "classic" button... First lesson for new designs: if someone says *not for me* then leave them alone or they will leave your site alone.
Why should I have to press "request desktop site" each time I simply want to read an article ? This is not a PALM III where I zoom in with the Plus and Minus keys: my browser is more powerful than a Windows IE6 browser (feature wise), faster than many regular old Pentium IV's and pinching is good enough to get around the site.
[rant mode off]
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
When I click on something it takes forever for the UI to respond. There is no visual feedback so until I realized that the new UI was just 200x slower than the old one I clicked on the things 5-10 times thinking the clicks just didn't take the first n-1 times.
I've obviously switched back to using the desktop site on my mobiles, but there is a popup on every page load asking me to try the mobile site! Sheesh!
You need to fire the contractors involved and hire some people who know what they are doing.
I jused the (new) mobile site for the first time on an iPhone 4S and had no issues whatsoever. Although I like the overall look and feel of the site I don't think a redesign was all that necessary. Sorry, devs :) But don't listen to the haters, they wouldn't like it no matter how it had turned out!
On my Note 2 the mobile site is having trouble registering any scrolling. It's most likely due to bad javascript.
But my mobile device doesn't have a touchscreen. How will this site fare under Opera Mini?
As others have already mentioned, it's no good.
It's slower, it's glitchier, and many of the basics just don't work as well as the old site. I tried it for a few weeks but eventually gave up. It's just not as efficient as the old site.
What the fuck were you guys thinking?
An, in general, what the fuck is going on with people designing user interfaces these days? It seems everywhere you go there's yet another abortion of a user interface.
Seriously...
And it's making it difficult to navigate the site. Plus, there doesn't appear to be a way to get back into classic once you're in mobile. Looks ok, just needs functional work
BOOP!
the poll shows as the top story, but yet when I want to vote it doesn't show me any options...
Anonymous Coward #5846292 also prefers the standard site and will continue utilizing the standard site, wearing onions on belt, etc.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I browse /. on my Nexus 4 and iPad, both of which display the full /. site perfectly. The layout of the site downscales rather nicely, and I've never had an issues with it. The "mobile" site, on the otherhand, is not my cup of tea. It just doesn't feel very slashdotty.
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
Trying to load it from my mobile device over 4G, and over my desktop via hard-line. It's either not loading, or running a LOT slower than the beta was the other day.
Did slashdot just "slashdot" themselves?
And it fails on a desktop. Looks like whatever library you used does not have touch/click events. Fail.
The mobile site is somewhat unresponsive on my Galaxy Nexus. I found I had to "swipe more" to get the site to scroll. This doesn't occur elsewhere, so I can only assume it's the toolkit you're using.
The orange-to-teal header background takes a visibly long time to load; with the support on mobile phones being what it is, it would make sense to render this using SVG or Canvas, and cut down on load time.
The UI theme is rather quirky, and doesn't animate fluidly, for example when loading new content, drilling deeper into settings, and the like.
My long-time request has been to have a black color theme in the settings...
The new site is terrible. I really tried to use it for a couple weeks but had to go back (iPhone 4).
The new site is significantly slower first of all, which essentially kills it right off the bat. Speed should be your #1 feature. If you can't make it faster on mobile, don't bother with the redesign just tweak the existing layout.
It's also very glitchy as others have pointed out.
- Scrolling down often results in a click.
- After the page loads it jumps to the top again if you scroll down too fast
- transitions are glitchy and slow. Don't use them they don't add anything.
As for the announcement it is just full of fail.
>> We've built this new mobile interface optimized exclusively for your touch smartphones and tablets.
Why? The revolutionary part of the iPhone was that it could handle regular desktop sites and we could do away with WAP. Now we suddenly need a special site again? Just make sure that the layout scales well and you're done for mobile on a site that is purely about content. It's a different story if you're something like an online retailer where people want quick access to a few key functions (search, store locator, inventory, my account, etc).
>> Read comments and stories in a mobile-friendly view (no more squinting!)
Never had to squint on the old site. what's the problem?
>> Most popular stories shown right at the top
If I passed by a story earlier in the day what makes you think I want to see it again?
>> See beautiful achievement badges
I have no words. This is so stupid.
>> Show off your latest Gravatar
Yep, that's why I'm here.
>> We built this app using the latest technologies and frameworks such as Backbone, Zepto, Underscore, Hamstache, Jasmine, and Sass.
So you jumped on the bandwagon of stupidly named frameworks and used all of them because that's the thing to do these days. Surprise surprise, the end result is too heavy.
>> Since there are so many mobile devices and capabilities, we targeted webkit browsers, and Android versions above 2.3.
Sounds like browser support got worse then. Say it like it is.
>> We didn't start sketching the blueprints based on what we thought a mobile experience should be - we asked YOU.
Ah, that's the problem then. Design by committee and it shows.
No thanks. It takes forever to load, it looks like shit, and its generally terrible.
Now take that stupid popup thing that tells me to go to the mobile site. If I want to see your shitty social-web2.1-scalable-turnkey-webdesigner-solution I'll go to the god damn site myself. Whoever wrote this should be ashamed.
I still use the Classic Discussion System (D1) and have my Threshold set to 2 (sometimes I reset to 3 or 4 as well). How can I have the mobile site honor that preference?
The new mobile site is horrible. On the normal site I can read an article without having to click on the header, go to a new shit page, only to go back because the article is crap.
Whoever thought a responsive design was the way to go doesn't know shit about usability. The new mobile site should be shit canned and left to die.
Just my opinion.
White cat in a snowstorm here, completely white screen with "Slashdot" in title bar, FF18 on Android ... pretty useless.
... just a big white page.
Admitted, probably not many people use it but I prefer it as JS shuts down after a few seconds and it's sparse on bandwidth.
I really wish slashdot had an api to access posts so we could calculate the exact turning point. Definitely 2013 is when the tide has shifted.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
I have windows phone 8 and the browser is not recognized as a mobile device, so no annoying popup for me!
Try it! Library of Babel
While I do support reformatting the site for mobiles in order to make better use of space, I do not support having all of the content removed as well. I much prefer reading an entire summary rather than one-fifth of that same summary. The new mobile format is just shy of useless for those of us who want to read the summaries but don't have time for a full article or don't want to click on each and every subject.
And when did I vote on this? I Instinctivley TURN THAT CRAP OFF to EVERY site I visit, if possible.
Mobile sites are an utterly FAILED idea and I'm suprised /. has even thought about it.
Who on earth is at the captains chair, a bunch of mimmic monkeys?
I find it interesting that the mobile site completely fails to load when I want to view it on chrome with a desktop user agent. I love visiting mobile sites from my desktop/laptop when I have a slow connection or don't want to be bombarded with lots of content on a page (perfect for the lovely internet connections in airports/airplanes). Why deny desktop browsers from accessing the mobile site? Yes, I know I can use a user agent switcher to see the site but I shouldn't need to make that change. Just put a link at the bottom or top of the page to request the full site. This will also save you lots of headaches when you have weird mobile user agents that you don't fully recognize that then load a blank page because you don't recognize them as mobile.
I'm sorry, I realize that somebody spent a lot of effort and thought they were doing something really cool; however I have to give the mobile site a "fail".
Its page loading and scrolling performance is not acceptable in any of the Browsers on my dual-core phone: Opera, Dolphin, FireFox, Chrome--it feels high-latency: bloated and clunky. [...sort of like the type of user interaction expectations I would have from a Word Processor written in VisualAda.NET!]
Sigh,
New COKE, New Slashdot--back to "Classic".
I really dislike websites that keep me from opening stories in the background/new tabs. That's the way I like to read my news, and if I can't do that... I'll find another source!
I really don't like it when, to make more ad revenue by having me click through, story titles and summaries are abbrev...
You know, Slashdot, I know you guys have a dislike for Microsoft and everything, but just because they went off and designed the absolute fucking worst user interface in the history of mankind, didn't mean you had to go and one-up them.
All I see is a loading bar cycling endlessly...
Switching browsers to FF version 19 trillion not made by MS... ah I see it now but I can't click on anything at all not even the navigational links at the top of the screen...nothing.
Switching browsers aga... on second thought screw that. I hope you took it out of beta cause you realized alpha comes *before* beta. This site is totally broken.
Congrats... Slashdot has Slashdotted itself...
I ran it through this software I have at work called "Mobile Internet Testing Environment" and it got a "MITE score" of 68/100. It's based on best practices for performance of a mobile site. The slashdot mobile site got penalized for things such as not having the JS at the bottom, for having iframes, not combining css/js, one http request error, no alt tags for images, and others.
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
It's very slow on my S3, scrolling and navigating is hard.
The pop up keeps asking which site I want and half of the time I can't seem to click "classic".
The new site doesn't show synapses, just headlines which makes me click into the stories making it even laggier and jerkier than it already was.
Seems it isn't really ready for prime time yet.
it is blank in opera mini
It's adorable how you ask for input like you're actually going to listen to it. I predict that no matter how much we scream about how horrible the new mobile site is, you'll roll it out anyways.
Hrm, I sent my bug report to admin@ rather than feedback@ three weeks ago, but as of today, http://slashdot.org/zoo.pl?op=check&uid=42 (for any ID) is still broken. I guess we now know why zoo.pl was being hacked on though!
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
With Windows Phone 7.5, plus what ever happened to Slashdot Classic Green? I don't want this dark and gloomy nonsense.
For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
Overwhelming negative response. It makes one wonder what the design criteria were, or the Q/A strategy.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Stupid thing appeared blank in all of the browsers I tried. (Sorry, no, not the more popular ones, go ahead and hate me :P )
Personally I would kill to have the old HTML3 Slashdot back. Could browse that on a freaking Amiga, a QNX 1.44mb floppy disk, or Breadbox (Geoworks) Ensemble!
But no, we have to do everything the new fancy way because... because... because.. the old way is ooooooold!
Well, having been very happy browsing the 'classic' site with Chrome on iPads, iPhones and Android devices, I thought I'd head over there and see what all the shouting was about.
Site works OK using CHrome on iPad, but I confirm the above comments that it seems slower to load and rather sensitive to wrong clicks.
Big fail though is that if you try "disabling" ads, the top adsense bar remains.
still no IPv6.
Funny that Slashdot is trying to ride the wave of social networking even as most members wear their lack of social networking accounts like a badge of honor.
I would imagine the top use case for mobile access to a community site like ./ is the quick peek (while standing in line, riding public transportation, in a waiting room, etc.). If the mobile site is not quick, it fails this use case. Just serve up some new CSS on the classic site based on viewport width and be done with it.
I can't believe I'm the only one that is stumped by this but I can't find an answer anywhere else so here goes...
When viewing the standard site anonymously (on an android device), is there any way to adjust the comment score threshold slider?
This hasn't worked in any of the android browsers that I've tried.
I can't be the only one that browses anonymously and wants to change that right? Guys? Hello?
Let me get this straight:
I can't pinch and zoom
I can't increase the font size, and
The selections are grey on a white background
You're joking, right?
I hope the whole mobile team did not commit suicide out of low self esteem after all this rant man, I'm laughing so loud readind this thread.
Remember when PCs cost $2k and always got faster? Then at some point when most people had them, they started getting cheaper and stayed about the same speed.
Remember when web sites worked OK? Then at some point they started re-designing them and making them dynamic even when they didn't need to that.
Said before and needs to be said again: There is a time to fire your web developers and just maintain the site. Yes I know that's not a popular thing to say and so I'm saying it AC. It's so fucking true though...
Much like ICP thinks Magnets are magic; the Slashdot UI geniuses think that UX isn't worth crap. Navigation is so much more painful, the layout is incredibly generic, and above all I don't think anyone wanted it.
Stop making "mobile sites," we've had real web browsers for 7 years now for fucks sake. Everyone hated mobile sites then, and everyone does now. You reduce functionality and sell it as an "improvement." We are not fools.
The comments on the main site are impossible to navigate, with many of them being hidden by the filter at the top, and many of them being hidden by the "load more comments" at the bottom.
Nothing shows up. Android 4.1.2 browser on a galaxy s3. Completely white page and thats it (I dont have javascript disabled)...
I hope the damn pop up also goes away, its annoying as crap... and less javascript frameworks mayhelp my battery last a bit longer
The new site is terrible on my Droid X browser. The classic site loads in about 1/10th the time of your gee-wiz mobile site.
Take a lesson from Craigslist.org and keep it clean and lightweight - the users will appreciate it.
Is not working, white page.
Let me guess: you wrote your comment on a mobile device?
I'm confused why anyone - especially a technology-driven site like Slashdot - would create a "separate but equal" website just for mobile devices. It doesn't make sense these days. What's better is to build a responsive web design that scales down appropriately to the device. Then we don't have to visit a separate website with different branding to get to the same content on a mobile device.
In a responsive web design, you might still choose to detect a mobile browser, and then set the comment browsing level to "5" or maybe "4". That's arguably the only thing you'd need to do that requires knowing the type of the client device.
I seriously can not understand how the mobile site can be so bad, especially after a long beta with user feedback.
The beta was slow to scroll, mistakenly interpreted scrolling for clicks much of the time, did not adjust well between mobile and tablets, was buggy, had inconsistent branding, and so on. This new release has ALL OF THE SAME PROBLEMS! It really is terrible.
Honestly, if I had network access to your database and ~3 days to spare, I could code something much better, that's standards compliant, smooth to operate, has a responsive design (no need to pigeon hole user agents as mobile / desktop), does not require Javascript for essential functionality, etc, etc.
Every time i tried the mobile version was slow, this its no diferent. Tried on Opera android and Google android. Its faster to use the full Slashdot on mobile then this version. You want me to use a mobile version ? add support for Tapatalk.
I tried shrinking the size of my browser but the interface didn't change. Is there something I'm missing?
It lacks search (a critical failure for me). With mobiles in various states, I'd prefer optimizing the original site for easier mobile use instead of a new site.
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
Can't read the whole post. It was one of the best things about slashdot when it came out. You can just scroll down and read all of the articles. Now it just shows a short sentence.
And it's buggy/slow. See http://arstechnica.com/. The do it perfectly. Tho I wish their summaries were longer (like on the classic slashdot site).
Just tried it on my Nexus 4; the lag when scrolling makes it completely unusable. I don't get this problem when using any other sites.
Still doesn't work right in opera.
I see that the comments are filled with everyone else complaining about the site, although they complain about different things. I'll throw in my two cents:
> the most popular stories highlighted at the top of the page
Can I just look at the stories in the order they were posted? I don't want to read through the entire page (which arguably goes on forever) to make sure I didn't miss a story because it wasn't popular.
The popup asking if I want to use the new site doesn't disable the other links on the page, so almost everytime I try to answer the question I end up navigating to whatever link was under the popup.
The new mobile site truncates every story way too ear...
With incomplete summaries for *every* story, I have to click on *every* story when previously I just had to scroll. So I scroll down to story 7, click on it, read the summary, click back, oh, I'm at the top again, so I have to scroll down and read the truncated summaries of every story until I find the one I was just on. Ok, now on to number 8. That's truncated, so I have to click on that...
The new interface was clearly designed by people who never have to use it. If the interface was truly well designed, most people would opt to use the mobile interface on a desktop. Are you using the mobile version when on a desktop?
The *only* problem I had with the old site is that it forced a width that was too big rather than adjust for the screen size (like HTML should). I haven't built up the energy yet to find a hack to make the CSS work with mobile devices. Instead, I either wait until I'm on a desktop or read another site. I was always confused why the world was filled with millions of mobile devices but Slashdot never fixed the simple problems with their CSS. I found it why, it's because they were perfecting space travel so people could wash their second-story windows easier.
Does this mean I'll see mod points in another year?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
New mobile site really doesn't work on desktop browsers, but it does load articles and i can see what it's all about.
Now my question is, what makes it so hard to make it? I think i could create something like this with jQuery Mobile or Sencha in few days (or less). Why did you choose to start from scratch and now spend days and days to fix bug's like touch events and differences beetween browsers? You could spend most of your time to simply polish and make it look like yours if you chose to use UI libraries that are already available.
Dear Slashdot, I have no intention of ever registering for your site or using the mobile version. Please fuck off with the popup or at the very least make the use classic button click able (both don't work which doesn't exactly fill me with confidence about your mobile experience). Samsung galaxy s3, latest OS, chrome if it helps.
Ok, so I'm going to be the contrarian. Again. Surprise. I think it looks very good. I can see three or four summaries without having to scroll (4.8" screen), when I hit an article the font size is very readable. Only when I hit an off-site link does the display look like crap, when you go to a site that is not optimized for mobile devices. Then the font is about the same size as nanites. The pop-up is annoying and not necessary to me. I have a couple of Joomla based websites that use a plugin that automatically detects if you're on a mobile device and just sends you to the mobile optimized site. Not sure why you don't just do that.
reply to the positive or 'constructive' remarks or also to the more negative ones ? I will be watching this topic, my finger on the Resign button.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Replacing the comment score filter slider with "All", "Outstanding" and "Funny" buttons is a serious loss of functionality. I'm pretty happy browsing at +1 or +2 usually, please let me continue!
A recursive sig
Can impart wisdom and truth
Call proc signature()
... I really hope you mean back into alpha
Hi, I see a lot of you are having trouble with scrolls in the app being detected as clicks on stories. The team here has been trying to reproduce this, but failing. Here's a list of device / browser combinations I've tested:
The concern here is that there's some kind of common scrolling motion we aren't doing that's causing them to get interpreted as clicks. Are you holding your finger down longer? Pausing somewhere in the scroll? Is there horizontal motion in there? Is your scroll more of a flick? We've tried all those things and haven't seen it, so if some of you experiencing the problem would be kind enough to record a video of yourself making it happen (preferably on one of the above devices so we can reproduce it too), that would be great. There is no Slashdot Mobile QA team and our dev team is tiny.
It looks ok, but on my ipad 1 it load really slow. I know, i know the ipad 1 needs to be replaced by now, but still....
It jsut gives me a blank screen using Firefox Mobile on Nexus 7.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I'm curious what you mean. I implemented the feature that disables ads for subscribers and Maker-mode users, but that doesn't sound like what you mean. How were you trying to turn off the ads?
The desktop version is just fine for mobile. Ensure that text reflows correctly on zoom. Use color for the comment tree. Make all links usable size. Fix chooser popup.
Long version: I like the desktop site a lot, and it works pretty well on my mobile phone. I think that with just a couple tweaks, it would be excellent on small phone screens as well as larger tablet ones and desktops.
The only changes to the desktop site necessary to make it perfect for mobile, IMO, would be these:
One: Make sure the text always reflows properly when zooming. It is a huge pain to scroll left and right to read a line of text!
2: The lines at the left showing the comment tree, are unfollowable on a small screen, and thus waste space. Making them alternating colors would help a lot with deeply nested comments. Just follow the blue one up to find the parent, the grey one to the GP, etc. This would help on the desktop as well. Its hard to follow when you're 12 layers deep and there are a dozen identical vertical lines to try to visually differentiate. If we _must_ have only green, grey, and black on /. then instead use dashed, dotted, and solid lines.
C: When you get down deep, to something like a great-great grandchild comment, the lines of text have shrunk so much as to make clicking on a particular 'Re:' pretty hit or miss. Chrome mobile browser fixes this by popping up a magnified view of the click area when links are small and close together. A very convenient feature. Maybe /. could implement something similar. Or perhaps stagger the 'Re:' left and right a bit to separate them from each other. (Maybe not, messing with the indentation might send the code monkeys and Aspies among us into fits of homicidal rage)
IV: As many others have noted, the chooser popup is annoying and broken. You devs have seen and are fixing that, so, hooray and thank you.
Other than that, the desktop site is just dandy on mobile. I actually quite like it, and definitely prefer it to the big-text-children's-book-mobile-optimized-hot-messes that many sites offer. Tweak the desktop version, and keep it unified.
One last problem I have been seeing for quite a while, with many different browsers, on my phone and on my laptop, is that part of a comment's text will be repeated and smashed onto the end of the comment. Like the following, but without the brackets.[mment's text will be repeated and smashed onto the end of the comment. Like the following, but without the brackets.]
Let's all go drink and kill and fart. Yeah, sure its fun, but is it ART?
U-G-L-Y
Tried to bring up a story in Galaxy Tab 2 and all I got was a white screen. Went back, tried a different story and got the same result. This is using the default Android browser.
I tried it the first time I got the pop up. Stock dolphin and I couldn't scroll. I sent an email reporting this and went on ignoring the pop up which I still get every time I come here. Now it's a week or two later and I see that scrolling has become better but still not use able. How did this even make it to beta? How how how has this gone live like this?
I'm almost surprised I didn't get an email saying, "do you understand, I'm done talking to you!"
Been trying to use the mobile site on and off.
It's best feature is that the popup that is supposed to remember whether you want to use the new mobile site or not forgets your preference -- which is the easiest way to get of the godawful UI back to the less awful full site UI. That is - just reload the main page 'thank god you forgot, and no i never want to see the mobile site again'
They must have JavaScript performing the scroll. It is slow and many times not responsive on android using chrome.
Seriously let my browser manage page scrolling now what ever you are doing.
The mobile site is absolutely terrible and it has gotten no better for as long as you've been bugging me to use it. Do any of the slashdot web people even have a fucking smartphone? Have you tried using the damned site? These questions are completely rhetorical as I know the answer is "no". The abomination that is the mobile site is caused by the same systemic failure in leadership and programming skill that's made the "Web 2.0" slashdot homepage such a clusterfuck.
It is really not difficult to make a website that loads well and looks good on both desktop and mobile browsers. You don't need fancy JavaScript, CSS3, or buzzwords. Shit you've already got the state of the art Palm optimized homepage. Update the HTML template in that spaghetti code and you'll have yourself a nice workable mobile site.
I know a terrible user experience is part and parcel of the Slashdot experience but I really expect a little more out of the site. I'll keep using aggregators that just slurp the RSS feed so I can avoid the UI vomit that is modern day Slashdot.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
This will probably be lot in the sea of responses, but hopefully some of the devs will see this.
I am using iPhone and found that the mobile version is very bad at handling unstable network connections, namely
1. if I start the app on a train, or anywhere with weak signals, the site will open, then load.... forever. Even when I get back to places with good signal. Have to force close then re-open.
2. if I switch to another app (e.g. make a phone call, or even follow a link in the article), then get back, the app will have to reload again (and lost the spot I was reading, I have to scroll down from the top again)! **** PLEASE FIX - THIS IS A SHOW-STOPPER ISSUE ****
3. I cannot open an article, then swap back to the main page while it loads in the background, then switch back later when the article is loaded, which I can do in Safari with the normal web site.
4. No button to Quote Parent when posting.
5. Minor issue, the screen layout wasted a lot of space, especially noticeable when used on iPad.
Oliver.
Posting with my Galaxy Tab using Chrome. Links to stories have no context menu for press and hold so it is not easy to open in new tab. Once in a story the back button does not return me to the list, pressing the back button twice sends me back to the login screen. Login failed without a message.
The app works great on my phone. Maybe you all should google the instructions for your particular phones. Your venomous attacks on the app developers are ludicrous. Maybe you should step back and assess the wasted time that you spend slamming others and find some direction In your lives. Why not try some constructive comments instead of acting like a bunch of angry kindergarteners.
Normal Slashdot has a "disable ads" button if you have good karma. I believe that is what they are rederring to.
I did not buy a phone or tablet with a full web browser because I wanted a shitty, dumbed down, version of the web. Some CSS tweaks to make UI elements easier to touch and remove hover selectors are OK, but anything beyond that is not wanted or needed.
What the f***k is this for? Pretty looks? I want to read the comments and I mean READ. Who ever makes the text that needs to be red comfortably -- especially on a small screen -- the most illegible part of the entire page? It's small font, and its gray for Chist sake! Those who tell that small gray text is easier to read should never be allowed to design anything again. Bleh!
It's childish "hold a grudge" bullshit, why try to understand and analyse a post when you can just write it off straight away due to the little coloured icon telling you if you automatically dislike the person or not?
I'm surprised it's lasted this long to begin with.
Or is the thought of using slashdot on a mobile phone about as appealing as typing in boxing gloves while an elephant shits on my head after being force fed prawn vindaloo?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Good QA here ...
I agree with the wasted screen space . The top toolbar ( viewing on iPhone 5) looks like the bottom browser toolbar ... With identical looking forward and back buttons that behave totally differently ... Total waste of screen real estate IMO ...
Switching out of the app is a show stopper for sure !!!!
I prefer dedicated mobile apps over opening a mobile web page.
Why?
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Normal Slashdot has a "disable ads" button if you have good karma. I believe that is what they are rederring to.
Indeed. That's Maker mode, as I mentioned, though Maker mode doesn't get offered for merely good karma.
I've implemented ad hiding for Maker mode, but if I can reproduce a bug with it, I'll fix it.
'grats. Full marks in all three.
1) With mobile apps I can see cached data when not connected to the internet.
HTML 5 + localStorage + cache manifest = offline web apps. I <3 HTML 5!
2) Mobile apps can take advantage of specific mobile platform and hardware features.
And what mobile, native-only features would you include in Slashdot?
3) Mobile apps are generally designed with a better UX than their web counter parts.
It's that "generally" thing that kills this point, and besides, whether or not an app / web app is well-designed is a function of the designer, not the medium.
I understand where you're coming from; badly-written mobile sites can have issues that native apps appear to fix, but that's because those web apps are poorly designed, not as a result of being rendered through the browser. If there's a case for lots of native functionality, or high render speed is required, I could see making it a native app, but in a content-centric site like this, I don't think it would be worth the additional cost and developer time.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I'd probably hate it even more if it ever displayed more than a blank page.
When you're hammered everything looks like it needs nailed....
Apologies if mentioned above. Using android default browser. Couple of use cases that looks like haven't been considered.
1. Opening stories in new tab. I like to open the main slashdot page, browse down the stories, then as I see a story I like long press on the story and choose to open it in a new tab. This preserves my place on the main page, and I can reviews the story/comments in a new tab. Then close it when I am finished. Currently cannot long press on anything. Appears that each story summary on the main page has no 'links' as understood by the Android browser, rather some sort of screen area that cannot be opened as a separate tab.
2. Back button does not work. Seeing as I couldn't open stories in a new tab, I pressed to open a story. Naturally as with any browser based application, when I had finished, I used the Back button to return to the main Slashdot page. This resulted in slashdot disappearing altogether! I guess you are using dynamic loading of content. If you don't want this to work in a browser, then create your own client side application with it's own functionality. If you expect this to work in a browser, then for god's(gods,noodly) sake RESPECT THE WAY THAT BROWSERS WORK!
So does Anonymous Coward have good karma?
It's shocking to see Slashdot has learned nothing from the Digg redesign fiasco. This place has been growing less and less useful with every Web 2.0/JavaScript addition. Keep pushing me and may actually sink low enough to turn to Reddit for my daily news.
I've been using it for a while, and since I am patient, I put up with its problems. But, I honestly feel that this isn't production ready because of the amount of bugs I run into while using it.
Perhaps the status of the site should be moved to "beta" and a clear way for users to report bugs should be added so that the issues can be addressed.
Here are a few of the things that are happening to me:
- Scrolling up/down is not as responsive as scrolling in any other app on my phone (I would describe it as laggy, but I realize that the processing for this is most likely all on the client end).
- I actually love that there's a notifications section, but when you click on it and it brings up a list of notifications, the list is ordered by date in ascending order, not descending, so if you want to see the latest notification and you've had a lot them in the past, it won't show your unread notification even if you scroll all the way down. Instead, you need to scroll down, click "view all", which loads up the notifications in a new screen, then scroll all the way down again. Then, let's say this notification is on a comment you made (ie. comment reply), you have a link to your comment, but when you click on it, it only brings up the article, rather than your comment. So you are left to scroll through the hundreds of comments to find your own all over again. This is a long and frustrating process.
- When posting a comment, there isn't a preview option, so the odd time that I've forgot to add HTML to format my text, I didn't realize until I'm looking at the posted comment. But, if I may make a request, since writing HTML is not easy on a smart phone (with all of the clicking extra buttons to get to the special characters) could the comment field be a WYSIWYG field?
- While I'm making requests, could there be an option to turn off showing the slashdot polls at the top of the main screen? I usually don't care about these, so to have to scroll through them every time I'm looking at the stories, is annoying.
- Since this latest release I've been having some troubles where the top navigation back button is disappearing when going into articles. The only way to go back after this happens is to close the app and relaunch it, or click on a link that's at the footer of the page.
- As mentioned by other people, it's slow and either doesn't register any screen taps, or else it registers them when I'm not trying to tap on the screen but I'm trying to scroll.
- This is just cosmetic, but when pulling down the main screen to refresh, the graphics on this look weird. Things, such as the "Most Discussed" link, appear overtop the pull-down section.
So, as mentioned, there are a lot of bugs, and this isn't even an exhaustive list from reading through the other comments on here. But I feel that if these things get sorted out, it would be a superior experience to the regular site, so I do hope that the developers keep at it.
I'm on an iPhone 5, and I use Safari to browse.
And I'm also getting the "mistake scroll-drag for click" bug. I want the old site back. This new one sucks.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
Maybe it's just me, but clicking on the links / icons does nothing. Admittedly, this is on my desktop, but you'd think that it would here too...
Browser: Chromium 22.0.1229.94 Debian 7.0 (161065)
Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.