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Parkytowers: Mobile support 

Mobiles

A while ago Google started complaining that these pages are not mobile friendly. I don't know if I'm atypical[*] but personally I wouldn't use a mobile phone to look up the sort of information on this website - unless on that rare occasion when I might be standing in front of an unknown thin client on a stall at a flea market.

Personally I currently carry around an iPhone SE (bought secondhand on eBay in March 2017) which I use primarily as a phone. I have no wish to carry around anything larger or more expensive come to that. Its secondary use is to check emails when on the move. Finally I might use it to check something on the web.

It looks like the trend for some years is very much for mobiles with largish screens which also may serve as the user's only device for browsing the internet.

If you are using something with a relatively small screen to access this website please feel free to email me to tell me what you're after. If I can understand the why I may be able to improve things.

Over recent years Google Analytics has given me the following figures:

 December
2016
December
2018
December
2019
November
2020
Desktop78%64%66%60.9%
Mobile17.5%30%32%36.4%
Tablet4.5%6%2%2.7%

(I decided to remove the Google Analytics code in December 2020)

January 2018

In January 2018 I adjusted the CSS so that the left-hand menu vanishes if the display screen is less than 780 pixels wide. Instead there is a 'hamburger' icon at the top-left of the page that can be used to load just the navigation menu when required. When loaded on its own, the menu buttons are larger and further apart to help those with large fingers and small screens.

I picked on 780 pixels as it means things are normal on an iPad in landscape mode but you get the new approach if you switch to portrait - also an easy way for me to check things. I don't have a swathe of devices to check things on - so please feel free to complain if the site doesn't render properly on your particular phone or tablet (or computer).

October 2018

I adjusted the lspci listings so that they were hidden unless you clicked on a down arrow to expand the entry. The listings can be quite wide and so were dictating the page width.

December 2018

In early December I revamped the appearance of the site. Rather than each page filling the browser window it now has a maximum width set. Hopefully I've found any odd formatting issues that appeared as a result of this.

Later on in that month I worked through all the larger photos on the site - primarily the inside detail of the circuit boards - to make the pages 'responsive'. They now re-scale as the viewport decreases and (hopefully) smaller images are downloaded for the smaller screens.

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[*] I can't understand why the colour of paint on a wall can stop anybody buying a house. The things that count are whether the house is structurally sound and the size of the rooms and layout suits you. A can of paint and a paint brush can easily and quickly fix the colour problem!

 


Any comments? email me. Added December 2016    Last update January 2021