Announcing The Escapist's New Mobile Site

[Dimitriov]

Please don't. I just encountered this on my phone for the first time earlier today.

I HATE mobile sites. Why would would I want a shittier version of a website with things in different places just because I am using my phone? It makes no goddam sense.

Edit: Well at least it was fairly easy to turn off, and that's something.

 

[Fox12]

It's garbage. Even more so because, as it seems, the "turn off mobile" option does jack squat. Everything is squished together, forums are uncomfortable to go through.


And what's worse? All the articles I don't care about are jumbled up in with the news. Plain bloody garbage. It's actually worse than the site redesign done a while back.

I noticed that today, and I thought there was something wrong with my phone.

I usually visit the site on my phone during the day. A few minutes between classes, during a slow lunch break at work, ect. It's worked fine. Now it's a mess, and it's far less intuitive then the normal site.

It's fine for some, I guess, but I'm going to try and stick with the original, if I can.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Wait, wait. The existing HD streams already worked fine on my tablet. Pubclub has had working HTML5 video for as long as it's existed, and that has worked fine up to now.

Are you telling me you broke it in the process of trying to add dedicated mobile support? XD

I mean, I did find recently a video that didn't work on my tablet...
Was the first time ever. Have you changed the codec used for HTML5 video playback? Because if so the new one seems to be worse than the old...

 

[Teoes]

Y'all could maybe try not being shits about it. The thing is a work in progress and the staff are working hard on it. They've been really quick so far about responding to feedback and fixing issues, so how about being a little constructive with your criticism?

 

[Shocksplicer]

I have a number of complaints, but seeing as how they're all sure to be fixed in the future I won't ***** about them.
One thing that does bother me though:
Why does Feed Dump have a dedicated tab? The Escapist doesn't even host that show anymore...

 

[Guffe]

Just checked it out and from what I looked in 5 minutes and browsed around it seems fine. A lot better than having to navigate the site on my phone like before
didn't notice anything bad, but as I said, I only checked it for about 5mins, I do use my computer more and don't really like surfing on my phone. But it seemed OK!

 

[Strazdas]

The mobile site will now offer some snazzy new features like an HTML5 video player with HQ video now default for all users and HD (720p) video for Publisher's Club members.

Wait, i thought Archon said HD videos for everyone? now it seems like HD videos for noone for mobile users at least (720p is not HD). Or is that coming later? Because as it is right now, i can watch same video on your youtube channel than on here in much better quality, and that says a lot considering how horrible youtube quality is. The only reason i do it from the escapist is to help support the site more (well and badges, all dem badges)

There's even an opt-out feature for logged in users that allow you to view the desktop-style site on your mobile device, if you really wanted to.

Thank you. i hate when sites lock me into shitty interfaces and does not allow me to use desktop interface. just by having that option your a head above others already.

 

[the_maestro_sartori]

I FEAR CHANGE!

Srsly though, as someone who does most of their escapisting on my phone, this is FAB. The forums / articles are much easier to read and load times are less than half what they were.
10/10

 

[Hazy992]

I think what would help is making the avatars etc smaller, perhaps putting them above the user's post. Right now you've got that taking up over 1/4 of the real estate and it ends up squashing the text.

Also there's a few formating issues, with text overlapping each other etc.

Spoiler

 

[False Messiah]

I turned it off in about the same time it took me to find the button to turn it off. But my Note 4 has enough screen real estate to show most sites normally. I think the mobile site is a good thing for smaller screens though!

 

[NoShoes]

The mobile site will now offer some snazzy new features like an HTML5 video player with HQ video now default for all users and HD (720p) video for Publisher's Club members.

Wait, i thought Archon said HD videos for everyone?

HQ for everyone, HD will be reserved for pubclub.

Wait, wait. The existing HD streams already worked fine on my tablet. Pubclub has had working HTML5 video for as long as it's existed, and that has worked fine up to now.

Are you telling me you broke it in the process of trying to add dedicated mobile support? XD

I mean, I did find recently a video that didn't work on my tablet...
Was the first time ever. Have you changed the codec used for HTML5 video playback? Because if so the new one seems to be worse than the old...

It seems like you're having several issues mixed into one here. Can you give me a bit more detail, maybe a screen shot of the issue? What device are you using?

As far as the codec, your browser is given a choice of what to choose, while previously it was given a webm/mp4 depending on what the standards offered. I'm going to be installing a quality selector directly on the player here soon so you'll be able to switch to your preferred type.

 

[NoShoes]

I have a number of complaints, but seeing as how they're all sure to be fixed in the future I won't ***** about them.
One thing that does bother me though:
Why does Feed Dump have a dedicated tab? The Escapist doesn't even host that show anymore...

If you'd like to voice your complaint without putting it into this thread feel free to send us a message over yonder. There's always a chance you're seeing something we missed.

 

[bluegate]

First things first; it was high time that you guys embraced the mobile landscape. Granted, the Escapist seems like quite the extensive website and converting it to a proper mobile format takes time, but I feel that it could have been done a wee bit quicker.

Anyway, on to some points of critique;

- The left sidebar only scrolls when you have scrolled all the way down on the 'main page'
- The main page is not 'deactivated' when the left sidebar is out; if I click on an item in the Latest category when the left sidebar is out, I am navigated to said link instead of the sidebar moving away.
- In the Latest section; the link that goes directly to the forum should be bigger and not just a 9px height link. This is fine when one is using a mouse to navigate, but on mobile where one navigates with fingers, a clickable element this small is not user-friendly.
When creating a mobile website it might be best to step away from the desktop version for a bit and rebuild the design from scratch, asking yourself; what works on a ( roughly ) 360x640 canvas and what doesn't.
- When clicking on Popular or Comments the layout kinda jumps

These are a few points that caught my attention when I first opened and used the mobile site for a few seconds. I like the initiative that you guys are showing with this, but as you, hopefully, realize yourself, this still has a long way to go for it to become a proper mobile site. As it stands now, you are are just shrinking the width of the website to somewhat fit a mobile device.

I very much look forward to seeing future updates of the mobile website of the escapist. How frequent do you guys plan on updating the mobile version? Is there any place for users to keep track of the development updates?

 

[totheendofsin]

FINALLY!

One of my biggest issues with the site was I found it awkward to browse on my phone, while it's not perfect this is a step in the right direction for me

 

[flying_whimsy]

Yay, now I can finally check this site on the go. I'm really excited about the html 5 video player, but I feel like it might be a case of too little, too late. We needed videos on mobile years ago (and not behind a paywall), not when there's only one video series left.

Anyway, glad to see you guys are working so hard on this: I got in the habit of avoiding this site when not on a pc because my ancient tablet didn't do well with a site this media heavy and I don't trust the ads and other tracking things when it comes to my shiny windows phone.

A for effort.

 

[Gene O]

This is very welcome news!

 

[Sleepy Sol]

Neat effort at making the site more mobile-friendly, but I've already gotten so used to using the regular old version on my phone. Even with that much tinier screen.

There are certain parts of the forums I can't actually see when I have the mobile version of the site on. Namely the number of posts in a thread and the date/time of the last post made in the thread. I guess that's a pretty nitpicky thing to really need or care about, but at this point I'd rather have full functionality rather than a slightly cleaner and more streamlined website interface.

I have a Samsung Galaxy S4, if that means anything. Personally, while using the mobile site I didn't really have a whole lot of technical problems. But I think some parts of the forums need to be rescaled on the mobile version of the site. Like Hazy said, the avatars take up way too much space in the mobile version of the forums, and posts just seem weird to me because of it.

Not a bad shot at creating a mobile version of the website, though.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Wait, wait. The existing HD streams already worked fine on my tablet. Pubclub has had working HTML5 video for as long as it's existed, and that has worked fine up to now.

Are you telling me you broke it in the process of trying to add dedicated mobile support? XD

I mean, I did find recently a video that didn't work on my tablet...
Was the first time ever. Have you changed the codec used for HTML5 video playback? Because if so the new one seems to be worse than the old...

It seems like you're having several issues mixed into one here. Can you give me a bit more detail, maybe a screen shot of the issue? What device are you using?

As far as the codec, your browser is given a choice of what to choose, while previously it was given a webm/mp4 depending on what the standards offered. I'm going to be installing a quality selector directly on the player here soon so you'll be able to switch to your preferred type.

Don't worry, it works fine now. It was just a temporary glitch with one specific video. (the most recently uploaded 8 bit philosophy )

Whatever was causing it obviously was just a glitch, whether server-side or on my tablet itself, it's not a problem anymore...

 

[RicoADF]

Good work guys, I had been hoping for a mobile version to show itself sooner rather than later. sofar everything is good but it's just been a few pages, will send screenshots of any issues that arise.
I agree with the others above about the avatar size and position, perhaps a smaller one above the post?