Test skin

[jdbnsn]

Hi everybody,

Due to some recent requests, I've decided to make an alternative skin available for wireless users to lighten the bandwidth. I will be doing a little testing with an autodetect feature tomorrow. If you own a mobile device including phone with wireless internet, PDA, Blackberry, etc... Even a laptop or wireless PC connection. Do me a favor and use it to log on to the forums. I would expect that you would not see a diff yet, and tomorrow after I've seen some answers here I'll turn the auto detect feature on to see what changes. So if you wouldn't mind, check now, and check again tomorrow after I've posted here saying I've switched on the detection. Then tell me what you see. Screen shots are not necessary, I just need to know if you see the usual skin or a simplified one. Thanks y'all.

Jon

[Drum Thumper]

It's not detecting my wireless connection on any of my computers--I'm thinking that's due to me being behind a decent firewall.

[jdbnsn]

Actually that is what I expect at this time, what I am looking for are any connections that auto detect anyway. You should be seeing the normal skin.

[crenn]

I'll keep my eyes peeled. I should mention all my 'normal' connections are wireless, but one is mobile broadband.

[DaveW]

Something I had also originally planned for the upgrade. Were it not for my mortal enemy, time, I would have implemented it.

That being said, last time I checked our statistics we have a very small number (<1%) of guests viewing on a screen smaller than 640*480 pixels. In terms of bandwidth, I've tried a number of tricks to try and keep the skin itself extremely small in terms of Kb. The skin itself shouldn't ever be more than...I think it was 40k? Which means that the real problem probably lies in VBDrupal, VBulletin, Mediawiki, etc.

I've said it a few times before, that we're pushed every piece of software here beyond it's operational limits to get the site to work the way it does. Anything else that interferes with the core of the design might cause major problems. Trying to accommodate for small screens and slow connections on our current system is exactly the kind of thing that could bring the system down.

I know it isn't ideal. I'm really, truly, sorry that the site is currently so inaccessible to anyone who isn't sitting at a desktop with a 1024*768 monitor. My pride is at stake here, so I just want everyone to know that I'm working on some solutions away from the main site.

However, one thing I have done is set up alt-text on everything I could. Unless it's been mistakenly removed, you can probably set your browser to not automatically load images on a page, and navigate by alt-text. This will have a huge impact on transfer speeds. You won't be able to see TBCS in all it's glory, but you might find your browser speeds increase by a lot.

Good luck with this Jon, but be careful. :)

-Dave

[crenn]

The problem is mobile devices. I'm wonder what the new skin will be like.

[jdbnsn]

I'll enable it in about 15 minutes and leave it that way for a while. Recheck over the next hour with any and all mobile devices and see what happens.

[jdbnsn]

okay, any changes?

[Fuganater]

I checked on my PocketPC and I am still getting the old skin and it takes about 3 mins to load. I have Verizon Wireless.

[XcOM]

my laptop still use's the current skin, no change here

[Fuganater]

my laptop still use's the current skin, no change here

He means like an iPhone, PocketPC, Palm Tri. Mobile devices. Laptops don't count because you don't use a cell phone provider to access the internet. You use a wireless access point to get your wireless.

[jdbnsn]

actually, for some reason laptops do count when I ran the initial test.

[Fuganater]

Odd then. Because my laptop access the internet via my wireless router which is in my home. It access the internet the same as your desktops do. Its on the same network.

UNLESS you are using a mobile wireless card. Like the little antenna for your USB or Express Slot on your laptop. That makes it access the internet the same as a mobile device ie. phones.

[jdbnsn]

meh, the system is too buggy. It seems to want to use an RSS style instead of the actual mobile template and it now uses it for every connected device, LAN included. I don't think we're going to use this just yet.

[Fuganater]

Research FTW!! lol just messing with ya boss man :P