IMPORTANT: The forum is (not) closing down!

CCC

Yeah, fine on Android tablets and larger android phones, but awful on smaller screens.

plasmodium

iOS devices typically have a relatively low PPI compared to similar Android ones, maybe that's it. It's reverting to the phone version because the resolution is low? Or the browser identification string whatchamacallit is just wrong.

LostInTranslation

^ Literally did not understand any of that.  All I know is that I access the Brickset forum *exclusively* via my Samsung Android smartphone and I find the design very user UNfriendly. You lose so much screen space with the menus/pop up bar things,  the discussions are all too cramped and the overwhelming whiteness of it all is very unappealing and as I said before,  has no personality.  Even after a couple of days using it,  I still think it's horrible.  I would hate to stop visiting here so much but I really can't see any benefits from this new design @Huw.

plasmodium

What I was saying was that maybe with iPads, the screen resolution is so low (ie, fewer pixels) that it's asking for the mobile site. But it doesn't make a lot of sense, tbh - and it would only be true of the early iPads, as well.

More likely is that the web browser is 'identifying' itself as a mobile device. I'm not entirely sure how it works, but essentially, when you visit a website, the web browser tells the site what kind of device it is (desktop or mobile) so it gets the right version of the site. Some tablets have big enough screens that the browser is programmed to ask for the desktop site by default (apparently including mine).

Using the Google Chrome browser (on Android and iOS, I assume), you can usually get around this by going to the menu (the vertical "..." at the top right, next to the URL bar) and checking the button "Request desktop site". Thing is, this doesn't always work, and sometimes the website still serves you the mobile version.

For what it's worth, the above method does work on my Nexus 4 (Android 5). I can get the desktop site, but it's really tiny to read on my phone screen. Having (briefly) seen the mobile skin, I'd say, yeah, it's ugly, but if it's possible to edit it to improve it, I'd take that over reverting permanently.

cheshirecat

plasmodium said:

but if it's possible to edit it to improve it, I'd take that over reverting permanently.

Why? What was wrong with the old mobile site? I'm not sure why anyone is mentioning the desktop site?

plasmodium

Sorry - I just pointed out in the poll thread that I didn't realise there was an 'old' mobile site! I assumed when people said 'new mobile site' they meant that the having a mobile site at all was new. Whenever I've visited (on two different Android phones, an Android tablet and a BlackBerry) I've always just been shown the desktop view with tiny text! It's possible that I set it to show desktop site so long ago that I've forgotten I ever did it...