Subj : focus on a decent mobile/tablet app
To   : Tony Langdon
From : August Abolins
Date : Sun Jun 21 2020 07:07 pm

Hello Tony!

** On Tuesday 09.06.20 - 19:27, Tony Langdon wrote to Nick Andre:

 NA>> Bringing us to my "point" about how if we take away the techie-
 NA>> aspect from newcomers and focus on a decent mobile/tablet app, thats
 NA>> a step in the right direction.

 TL> I agree totally.

 TL> If I was to use a mobile app for BBS messaging, I'd want a mobile
 TL> friendly touch screen interface, with more or less the same features
 TL> as an offline reader, including the ability to work offline if needed
 TL> (I do go into places with iffy or non existent mobile coverage).
 TL> Forum based concepts like threading would be good too,

How could those features be invoked?  Would they be ushered from hot areas  
on the edges (like some adaptive websites work with the "hamburger" icon)   
to pull up a menu?   I imagine that most additional controls would have to  
be out of sight inorder to maximize the reading pane.


 TL> and auto conversion of emoticons to emojis, where a commonly
 TL> understood text representation is available - :-) or :) would result
 TL> in a smiley face, for example.

That goes without saying! But there would be so many to process!  People  
seem to be inventing new ones all the time.  Personally I wouldn't want to
spend too much time looking through a pull-up of all the choices when  
writing a message on mobile.  But the inline decode could be appreciated.


 TL> I also expect that I can switch between the mobile app and the PC and
 TL> pick up where I left off (that rules out point and traditional NNTP
 TL> based solutions).

I can appreciate that aspect more and more now.  I wouldn't mind catching  
up with messages with OXP on one pc, but when I go to TB on another pc,  
deja vu is not always a pleasant experience.


 TL> A mobile app that's user friendly would be a great asset to BBSing.

Maybe someone could come up with a mockup app that demostrates how things  
could look and operate.


  ../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.44
 * Origin: The future is not what it used to be. (2:221/1.58)

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