Loomio
Mon 30 Jun 2014 11:25PM

Responsive Web Design implementation, something that Diaspora* needs.

DU Eduardo Public Seen by 129

I think it would be better that Diaspora* to be a Responsive Design webpage (only one frontend that adapts to the screen size), so that, the developers only have to maintain one version of the frontend interface instead of developing a desktop version and a mobile version, that's duplicate the efforts.
What do you think?

Here I attach the top 5 reason to adopt Responsive Web Design in 2014.
http://blog.desdelinux.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/5reasons01.jpg?cf6aed

RF

Rasmus Fuhse Tue 1 Jul 2014 6:58AM

This could be a nice idea if we had someone who is good at responsive webdesigns. I tried something like that a few times and must say, it is so easy to implement. At least you need a lot of different devices to test your site with. And the css can become quite complex.

Btw: Do you want to implement this?

DU

Eduardo Tue 1 Jul 2014 3:09PM

Nowadays using CSS frameworks such as Bootstrap or Foundation it's very easy to implement Responsive Desing without the need of advanced knowledge nor mediaqueries.

FS

Florian Staudacher Tue 1 Jul 2014 4:36PM

Yes, while responsive desing makes it possible to use the same markup on (almost) any screen size, there are other aspects to it than just layout.
A user on the desktop would certainly want all available features at his fingertips, and the site should make use of the space on those nice 24" wide-screen displays.
On the other hand a smartphone user might primarily want to quickly post content to the world and every additional button would waste precious screen estate needed for viewing content...
My opinion is that those different use cases justify keeping two separate versions of the UI. We should try to unify the backend instead and API-ify the way we interact from the browser frontends with the application in the background.

SVB

Steffen van Bergerem Tue 1 Jul 2014 4:44PM

With Bootstrap 3 one could also define buttons that will only appear in the desktop version. By the way there are already some parts of the software that are responsive.

JR

Jason Robinson Tue 1 Jul 2014 5:59PM

We should definitely move in that direction - or not do anything that goes to the other direction. But it's not going to happen overnight - or over a month :) Unless someone makes a day job about doing it.

Anyone? :)

ST

Sean Tilley Wed 2 Jul 2014 5:01PM

We need to unify our stylesheets and templates so that they're all on just Bootstrap first. After that, we can go crazy with responsive design, if we want to.

DU

Eduardo Thu 3 Jul 2014 11:17PM

I was thinking on another problem with Responsive Design.
RD it's all about design-only, but if you want to avoid loading some unnecessary scripts and stylesheets on the mobile version (optimize loading) is impossible.
Let's see. Is there a big software company who uses RD on his sites? Facebook uses another web version for its mobile site (m.facebook.com), Twitter too, Google+ too, Github, Gmail, Yahoo, LinkedIn, etc.

BP

Błażej Pankowiak Thu 7 Aug 2014 10:31AM

Google+ is responsive, while Gmail and Twitter do not force you to scroll horizontally on half of 1080p screen, which is nice when you arrange windows side by side. I don't see any reason not to have responsive design and I'd be more than happy to help. I think what happens to the mobile version is a different discussion.

JR

Jason Robinson Thu 7 Aug 2014 10:34AM

@blazejpankowiak great - help is needed! Totally agree - even if we continue to have a separate mobile view, it doesn't mean the main app should be designed only for desktops in mind.

You should probably bump up this thread and announce there that you would want to help shape the UI.

G

goob Thu 7 Aug 2014 11:00AM

I don’t see any reason not to have responsive design and I’d be more than happy to help.

The first stage of creating a responsive design is to port everything to Bootstrap, a responsive template. You can take part in this work here - all help is very warmly welcomed!

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