Buddyboss on 7" Tablets

[Paul]

When using Buddyboss on a 7″ tablet in landscape orientation the mobile theme is not invoked. This creates two issues:

1 – The site is cropped meaning you have to drag the screen to the right to see the full width of the content.

2 – When you tap into an input box (activity update or comment) the on screen keyboard takes up so much space it becomes almost impractical to then enter any text.

This probably comes back to needing the mobile theme to invoke on tablet devices. At present, Buddyboss is only really usable on tablets (smaller than a standard iPad) if you keep using portrait orientation. I’m not sure how this affects iPad Mini or Air devices as I don’t have those to hand.

Both problems can be seen testing on this site.

Can you please advise?

Thanks,
Paul.

[Paul]

Also, just to add to this, when an input box is automatically zoomed-in on a tablet, it doesn’t resize again when that box is de-selected.

[Alyssa]

@style960 can you please tell me the tablet manufacturer, model, OS, browser, and screen resolution?

[Paul]

@tjchester Yeah:

Advent Vega – Tegra Note 7 (manufacturer note model number as TegraNote-P1640)
Android 4.2.2
Chrome
1280×800

I’m guessing the problem is that resolution is greater than BB’s breakpoints. Better resolutions are the norm of new tablets though.

[Alyssa]

@style960 tablet size is defined as 721px to 1039px the question becomes at what point do you want to show the tablet version. Given tablets are becoming increasingly popular a decision will need to be made now or in the future which version to show users. I’ve successfully replaced all the @media references with increased sizes with minimal to no issues.

In reference to the site being cropped, aren’t you simply able to zoom out on the tablet? At that resolution we do not restrict the zoom.

In regards to the input zoom that is something we cannot control without fixing the zoom. You will need to decide how you want this to function on your site and adjust accordingly. You can view the code to prevent zoom in header.php should be easy to find.

[Paul]

@tjchester I would make that decision based on usability, and IMO the mobile version should be used on devices of this size. Is it intended that the desktop version be displayed when a 7″ device is being used in landscape mode? Or is it the case that since the BB breakpoints were written, the resolution these devices are capable of has increased? So while the visible display size remains the same, the resolution is better, hence the mobile theme isn’t kicking in. It would seem to me the theme should be updated to reflect such advances.

If you can provide a guide on increasing the media references I’m happy to look at it, but it seems this should be something done by the themes developers to cater for advances in technology, since this is something we would have to do ourselves across every client site.

From extended use I’m of the opinion that the mobile theme should be invoked at a minimum of iPad portrait orientation. But then for consistency from a users point of view, I would look for this to be the case on landscape orientation as well.

So if you could provide some pointers I’d like the mobile theme to be used from iPad downwards, until such a time the theme is updated to perform this itself, I’ll add these changes myself.

On using BB on the 7″ device it is possible to zoom out, but that indicates to me the site is not responsive on the resolution those devices are now capable of. Which matches what I’ve said above.

I’ll look at changing the zoom behaviour in the header – I use a custom header file already so that should be an issue.

Thanks,
Paul.

[Paul]

As a workaround for this, I’d be happy if there was a clean way to reduce the sidebar with on iPads. Ensuring the mobile theme on smaller tablet screens would be a priority for me, I just don’t think BB works on presenting the desktop version on devices that aren’t really capable of it.

Thanks,
Paul.

[Alyssa]

@style960 It appears we may be releasing (soon) a mobile only version of the theme, you can then use a plugin like Device Theme Switcher: https://wordpress.org/plugins/device-theme-switcher/ to choose which devices get which theme or use a completely different desktop theme with the BuddyBoss mobile version 🙂

Would this satisfy your request?

[Paul]

@tjchester That would be great, should tick all boxes. Excellent support again, thanks for your help.

[Alyssa]

Awesome to hear that. Give us a few weeks, month perhaps, to pull everything we need together. We have a simple version working but need to do cleanup to remove all the desktop and resolution restriction clutter.

[Paul]

@tjchester Yeah no worries. I still intend to use Buddyboss on desktop builds as well, but the option to invoke the mobile theme on other devices resolves some long standing headaches. It will also bring the site I’m working in more directly in line with competitor sites in terms of iPad functionality.