Omnimaga
Omnimaga => Site Feedback and Questions => Topic started by: DJ Omnimaga on August 27, 2010, 11:26:02 am
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This has been last updated on July 26th 2012
However there are ways to make your browsing optimal if you are away from a computer, if you are on a slow connection or if you just have a slow machine:
Solution 1 (free)
-First of all, switch to Omnimaga v4 (2008) theme. It is possible from the front page via the drop-down menu there or by clicking this link: http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?theme=3 . This theme uses smaller images in terms of file size.
-Secondly, in OmnomIRC, click the Toggle link to disable the shoutbox then click the (http://www.omnimaga.org/Themes/Omnimaga4old/images/collapse.gif) image at the top. On most devices, Omnom is either slow or buggy anyway.
-Third, if you still want to chat with IRC users, on Android there are free IRC apps as alternatives, such as AndroIRC, and you just have to connect to irc.omnimaga.org or any EFnet server then join #omnimaga channel to chat. If you're on iOS, you may have to rely on Cydia for a free IRC client.
On faster Android devices, you might still be able to browse Omnimaga with OmnomIRC enabled, but you'll still get slowdowns at times.
Solution 2 (free):
It is not widely known that Simplemachines forums software comes with three mobile interface modes built-in. On some phones, Omnimaga, for example, may default to one of them, but on some other mobile devices, you will still appear on the default site.
Well, if you are a dial-up user or are using a mobile phone with a small screen, Omnimaga can be accessed through one of the three following mobile interfaces:
http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?wap2
http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?imode
http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?wap (I do not recommend this one, as it won't let you post)
Note that images are disabled from there, as well as the downloads section, the arcade and the articles, though, so to view project screenshots or special pages, you will need to switch to the regular interface. However, for those who just want to quickly read posts and have a small screen or a very slow internet connection, this should probably help you. :)
Solution 3 (paid)
Taptalk! This would be the best solution I think, as it's specifically designed for browsing forums with a mobile device. However, it is not free. Here's the news about Taptalk support quoted from Deep Thought:
If you browse Omnimaga from a mobile device, you may have noticed a popup telling you about our newest site feature. The Omnimaga forums now support Tapatalk (http://www.tapatalk.com/index.php), a system for mobile users to easily navigate and browse web forums with a native app available for iOS, Android, Blackberry, and others. Here are the official Tapatalk apps:
- iOS (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tapatalk-forum-app/id307880732)
- Android (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.quoord.tapatalkpro.activity)
- BlackBerry (http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/46654/?lang=en)
Unfortunately, the Tapatalk app is not free; it's $2.99 on the App Store, Google Play, and BlackBerry App World. But if you're a big browser of Omnimaga and other Tapatalk-enabled forums, it may well be worth the cost. Plus, there are some free apps and extensions out there that let you use the features provided by Tapatalk for free:
- Google Chrome (desktop) users can use the Tapatalk Notifier (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/plfhcjljnfjpfcbjpgnflfofmahljkjj) to get notified of new replies and PMs
- Forums (https://developer.palm.com/appredirect/?packageid=com.newnessdevelopments.forums) is a free app for WebOS that does what Tapatalk does on other smartphones
- Board Express (http://www.board-express.com/plans-pricing/) for Windows Phone also handles Tapatalk forums, with a free edition
Hope this will be a useful feature to make the forums more convenient to browse.
And of course, with Taptalk you can't use OmnomIRC, so you still need an IRC client such as AndroIRC or Colloquy, to chat on irc.omnimaga.org/#omnimaga or irc.efnet.org/#omnimaga .
Hopefully in the future there will be a new version of Omnimaga v5 but less RAM-intensive, but for now I hope the solutions above help. :)
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Interesting. When I'm using a slow computer, this would be nice, except the navigation is too limited, and there's no recent posts list. Is there any possibility of changing this?
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Sadly nope. This is a pre-built software and I have no experience in modding this. At least it's better than nothing, though :P
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I guess this was designed for phones. Oh well...
Something that would be more doable is a theme that contains zero images, with maybe an exception for the omnimaga logo.
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actually if you login and click unread posts/replies, its similar
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Thanks for the info, this'll be useful. Though I guess the screenshot pyramid wouldn't work :P
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Might come in handy because my old computer uses dial-up and sometimes my laptop is not available. Thanks. :)
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Yeah the low bandwidth theme was an idea I had for a while. However, what I may actually do is simply add back a spinoff from the very first theme we used on Invisionfree. It only used one small image as background and the banner. There was an heavier theme not long afterward but people said it was too bright for the eyes.
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Spiffy! I'll have to test it when I get on Omnimaga on my iPod. :)
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blackberries default to wap2.
@FinaleTI:
you're >:D/2! :o
/me runs
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Nice to hear. Can you use the forum default skin on it btw?
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blackberries default to wap2.
@FinaleTI:
you're >:D/2! :o
/me runs
So I was halfway to being a soulless nexus of evil? >:D
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not anymore. :P
DJ: no, you couldn't use the default skin. :(
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The first theme we used on the old site, although it initially had a different background:
(http://xlib.mtv-music-generator.com/public/usersonlinerecord.jpg)
EDIT: This would be the the background used:
(http://www.omnimaga.org/oldsite/fond.jpg)
@Yunhua98 I see x.x
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I'm for these links :D On my dad's phone, its insanely slow to load omni.../me memorizes the links
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Also, you can't edit posts in the mobile version.
At least, not on the version of the site that my mom's Blackberry defaults to, anyways.
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Hey, guess what I'm using right now? ;)
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There's an icon for every mobile topics, that's great. So, yeah Sir is using his phone.
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Could omnimaga detect if you are on an iPod, and switch to wap2 if so?
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Could omnimaga detect if you are on an iPod, and switch to wap2 if so?
I think that is dependent on the iPod's software.
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It could probably be done via the user agent string.
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Could omnimaga detect if you are on an iPod, and switch to wap2 if so?
I think that is dependent on the iPod's software.
Yes and no. It's easily detectable, it's the switching of the themes that's the hard part. I don't know if smf allows it dynamically like that.
It could probably be done via the user agent string.
And he goes and ninjas me. But yes, it can.
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Possibly, usually I just add a ;wap2 after an address to open it in wap2 (make sure it's after the ? though)
In the past I tried to implement a iPod/iPhone specific theme, but it didn't work out unfortunately.
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I use imode.
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Well, here is what an ipod user agent kinda looks like. It's faked, because it's safari making browsers think it's an iphone, but it still shows what to look for:
Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7
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Well, here is what an ipod user agent kinda looks like. It's faked, because it's safari making browsers think it's an iphone, but it still shows what to look for:
Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7
basically all you need to do is have the check look for iPhone in the string. Don't know what files to change though to detect this, and I also like giving the users the choice on what version they want to browse
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If you could change the wap2 page, you could add a thing that says "do you want to use the real thing" and save that to a cookie or omnimaga user info.
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Well...it could get annoying. Personally, the links in the sidebar are good enough, and everybody who know's about adding the ;wap2 at the end will have it really easy.
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I'm sure it would be possible to setup SMF to detect iPods, but I don't know how and it might prevent future SMF upgrades, not to mention some people might prefer using the default forum view on their ipods.
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I'm sure it would be possible to setup SMF to detect iPods, but I don't know how and it might prevent future SMF upgrades, not to mention some people might prefer using the default forum view on their ipods.
Yeah, I always use the default theme. You could have it be based on the user itself, but that would require tons of mods.
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Yeah, or user groups, but that's a major pain to setup when EzPortal is installed. :/
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BUMP:
Updated first post with Taptalk support info and an alternate free solution involving switching to Omni v4 and disabling OmnomIRC.