Just a Little Leaf - Genealogy of the Weir and Drain Families

[BeverleyStimpson]

I "think" my website is ready for public viewing. I have created a guest account - username: Guest password: Guest.  No private or living information "should" be visible.

  I've based the customisation on Template 4, creating a new template from it. I would very much welcome any feedback. I've used the templates for the Help, Privacy and FAQ's kindly supplied on TNG Wiki.  And "borrowed" a few words when my brain was too foggy to create new... no copyright infringement intended - I think I have added credits to those people who provided them... and Thank You to all.

http://justalittleleaf.co.uk

Thank you in advance,

Beverley.

[Chris Lloyd]

Well done

[jayat1familytree]

Nice work, however,

In  Mobile mode most all the tng templates fail to show any of the customized left navigation menu items.

Just an FYI....

 

[Newfloridian]

7 hours ago, jayat1familytree said:

In  Mobile mode most all the tng templates fail to show any of the customized left navigation menu items.

Hi Jay

Another of my pet peeves about the "upgrades" added to TNG over the years. As I have always used T4 - and have probably taken its customisations to the extreme, perhaps I could add a few comments and suggestions.

In many respects, the loss of the left hand navigation column is only of significance to index.php All other pages have the top menu bar system which means that the standard left column is merely a duplicate.  I have other customisations within T4 that disables the left hand nav column in certain areas (the internal display pages such as Places, for instance)

What really puts the damage caused by "mobile mode" into sharp focus is if you have a highly customised navigation system (as I have) which has replaced the default. Anyone who has looked at my site has seen that it has a user added colour coded magazine of nearly 500 articles built up from historytemplate.php. These articles are grouped into sections and the customised left hand column has been rewritten to guide the audience around the magazine - and is sensitive to the part of the magazine that you are currently reading. "Mobile mode" cuts that off immediately.

That said, what might you do about it. Well, firstly I would say that my own site is NOT and never will cater for individuals trying to read it on such a small environment. The thought of someone driving down the freeway at 70mph staring at his mobile phone in one hand and with a Big Mac in the other ...!! 

So, you could simply ignore the effect in "Mobile Mode"

You could try to activate the top menu bar system for index.php (not entirely satisfactory but it is possible)

You could contact the nice person who dreamed up mobile mode to ask for a small mod which switches it off if you don't like it. If you test out mobile mode on your big screen there is a prompt which allows you to go back to standard mode. You can see what your site looks like on the small screen by typing ?sitever=standard at the end of the address on your browser.

You could acknowledge  the lack of a navigation system in "mobile mode" and write in a subsection on the pages concerned to replace the left hand column contents which only appears when mobile mode is active. To see how this works have a look at this page (easiest on a big screen!!!):

https://www.craxford-family.co.uk/themered/indexred.php

Look at the bottom of column 3.

Now on the address line add ?sitever=mobile. Now you should see the alternative menu for the RED pages there. You can still swap between the magazine sections by clicking on the + icon at the top.

To get back to the proper mode change the addition to ?sitever=standard

Cheers Alan

 

 

[tngrlkrz]

7 hours ago, Newfloridian said:

You could try to activate the top menu bar system for index.php (not entirely satisfactory but it is possible)

I too have perhaps taken the 'extreme' approach, while staying current in both TNG and PHP versions.  I have modified upper menu bars on all my index.php's for all of my user switchable templates.  That way full navigation is available in mobile mode, with no left-hand navigation anywhere in the system anymore (except, of course, in administration frames).

7 hours ago, Newfloridian said:

You could acknowledge  the lack of a navigation system in "mobile mode" and write in a subsection on the pages concerned to replace the left hand column contents which only appears when mobile mode is active.

I give users (desktop and phone/tablet) the button click option to switch between mobile or standard display.  I find it sometimes useful on desktops to use mobile, and sometimes useful to use standard on phones (zoom in and out easily).

Ron

[jayat1familytree]

Ron and Alan,

Please note in my response I mentioned "Customized" navigation links.

But as Ron mentioned, those left navigation menu links can easily be added to the drop down menu links. 

As I soon plan to upgrade my own live site from 10.1.3 to 11.1.2 that is exactly what I have done. Added all customized links into the drop menus.

I would like there to be a one time page after login when in Mobile mode that explains the site is designed to be viewed in 'Landscape' when in viewing mobile mode.

something like this

or seen test page here

http://1familytree.org/genealogy/mobileindex.php

 

And any site that is not designed to be 'mobile friendly' is already getting lower ratings for google and other search engines, making it harder for people to find your pages.

Alan I would be curious as to what your current mobile traffic is like...

I'm at 31 %  and I certainly dont want those visitors to not have the best possible experience. 

 

Jay

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Newfloridian]

Hi Jay and Ron

The point I was making is that if you run a site like mine where you need a customised left hand nav column to act as a navigation aid around 500 external user added pages, then it is just absolutely impractical to even consider adding them to the topmenu bars. I have a fourth dropdown menu bar which is a pointer to the landing page of each of the 9 sections of my magazine.

I really couldn't care less about whether I get views from mobile users or not. I am very happy that the majority of Google searches (I don't even test the minor searches) that lead to pages of mine are on the first page of search results - many at number one. As an example (and this has been indexed by Google from just the first two words of this phrase in one of my articles), try putting "Greasy Pete Dundee" into the Google search box.   

Alan

btw: Although I haven't transferred to a higher level on my ISP's server, my TNG10.1.3 is performing perfectly happily on my PC using Wampserver 64 set to PHP 7.1.2 I have one minor residual issue - not TNG as such, it revolves around the admin section of the Lazarus Guestbook (deprecated PHP terms) . Stewart Souter and the Lazarus website have been down for some time now - whether that indicates that the GB is in terminal decline I'm not sure. If you know of anyone with a copy of the latest beta version of Lazarus 1.25 I would be most interested.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BeverleyStimpson]

On 25/11/2017 at 8:29 AM, Newfloridian said:

Hi Jay

Another of my pet peeves about the "upgrades" added to TNG over the years. As I have always used T4 - and have probably taken its customisations to the extreme, perhaps I could add a few comments and suggestions.

In many respects, the loss of the left hand navigation column is only of significance to index.php All other pages have the top menu bar system which means that the standard left column is merely a duplicate.  I have other customisations within T4 that disables the left hand nav column in certain areas (the internal display pages such as Places, for instance)

What really puts the damage caused by "mobile mode" into sharp focus is if you have a highly customised navigation system (as I have) which has replaced the default. Anyone who has looked at my site has seen that it has a user added colour coded magazine of nearly 500 articles built up from historytemplate.php. These articles are grouped into sections and the customised left hand column has been rewritten to guide the audience around the magazine - and is sensitive to the part of the magazine that you are currently reading. "Mobile mode" cuts that off immediately.

That said, what might you do about it. Well, firstly I would say that my own site is NOT and never will cater for individuals trying to read it on such a small environment. The thought of someone driving down the freeway at 70mph staring at his mobile phone in one hand and with a Big Mac in the other ...!! 

So, you could simply ignore the effect in "Mobile Mode"

You could try to activate the top menu bar system for index.php (not entirely satisfactory but it is possible)

You could contact the nice person who dreamed up mobile mode to ask for a small mod which switches it off if you don't like it. If you test out mobile mode on your big screen there is a prompt which allows you to go back to standard mode. You can see what your site looks like on the small screen by typing ?sitever=standard at the end of the address on your browser.

You could acknowledge  the lack of a navigation system in "mobile mode" and write in a subsection on the pages concerned to replace the left hand column contents which only appears when mobile mode is active. To see how this works have a look at this page (easiest on a big screen!!!):

https://www.craxford-family.co.uk/themered/indexred.php

Look at the bottom of column 3.

Now on the address line add ?sitever=mobile. Now you should see the alternative menu for the RED pages there. You can still swap between the magazine sections by clicking on the + icon at the top.

To get back to the proper mode change the addition to ?sitever=standard

Cheers Alan

 

 

Wow Alan,  that site must have taken you years...  and looks good as both standard site and mobile

[Newfloridian]

Hi Beverley

Thank you for those kind words. I've sent you a PM

Cheers Alan