Hello. It’s usually a joy getting on the forum as there are a lot of people giving a lot of good and helpful advice. Thank you for that.
I have a question about mobile devices. My Site is quite big and is made with Express. I am quite happy with it and on the computer browsers it works wonderful. But what about all those new mobile devices? There are so many different ones, from Smart phones to Tablets and so on. What does one do to make his Site viewable of these things?
Do I have to create another Site that follows certain lay-out rules? Is there any advice avaiolable on this subject? Tablets are getting more and more accepted so if my site is not mobile device proof, I will not be able to have a good running Site. Thanks for your time.
I’m going through exactly the same thoughts. First thing I did was to check how my site actually looked on a real iPad and iPhone (PCWorld has to be useful for something!)
It was not too bad - certainly not so bad that I have to rush off and change things. Smartphone users do expect, even if they do not like doing it, to zoom and scroll around.
I also downloaded Apple’s free Xcode “app” - this had an iOS emulator and FW will detect this and offer you the iPhone Simulator as a browser choice. You can then see what your FW site looks like on Apple iDevices.
If you find that parts of your site do need to be fixed for mobile devices then you can use the Mobile Redirect action to direct your users to mobile friendly pages.
I’m sure others will chip in with other advice, which I look forward to reading too!
There are as many opinions as people but the most common approach currently is to build one site that responds to a multitude of devices by manipulating CSS, this is known as responsive design. This technique does require at the very least a firm grasp of CSS basics as that’s where all the magic happens. Caleb sells a nice responsive template which will give you a big head start but you will still need to do your homework.
Todd
Do I have to create another Site that follows certain lay-out rules?
First, you will still have a good running site, it’s just that mobile users won’t get an ideal experience.
Depending on your experience, analytics, resistance to headaches, and caffeine intake, there are several options that you have:
Just build a desktop website and don’t worry about mobile. If you have little time or knowledge, and your analytics show very small numbers of mobile visitors, this is probably the way to go. Personally, I don’t really mind zooming and scrolling on my smartphone as much as some web designers make out.
Build two versions of the same website: one for desktop and one for mobile (let tablets use the desktop version). If you have limited expertise but some spare time, this might be the way to go. The upsides are twofold; the mobile users get a “no compromise” design, and the individual websites will load faster than a responsive website. The downside is that you now have two versions of the website to manage/update.
Go responsive. Using FW Express, this route is next to impossible, and is not for the faint hearted. You will need to learn about CSS and inline construction (which is a Pro only feature, I think). The bonus is that you get a website that is virtually future proof and works well on all devices. However, I don’t think this is the end-all-be-all solution like some people do, responsive is in it’s infancy and there are some big problems that need to be addressed like load times.
There is really no right method, each has it’s fallbacks and bonuses. You really have to look at how involved you want to get and who you visitors are.
Thank you Caleb. That is indeed very helpful. I need to sit down and study your response. My knowledge is very limited, which is why I am still hanging on to Express. Ha. Maybe its time to ge a little deeper. In any case thank you for your reply.
Kind regards Dust
It’s been my experience over the years that the Express users have to become much better at HTML and CSS than their Pro cousins (ironically) because there are so many fewer ways to customize Express. What I can automate in an Action with Pro, you will need to learn at a much deeper level in order to implement within Express. I would say that 90% of anything you can do in Pro with Actions you could do in Express with the various Markup dialogs and a keen understanding of what you’re trying to do in HTML, as well as how Freeway (Pro or Express) is going to render that HTML from your design document.
Walter
On May 7, 2013, at 3:41 AM, Dust wrote:
Thank you Caleb. That is indeed very helpful. I need to sit down and study your response. My knowledge is very limited, which is why I am still hanging on to Express. Ha. Maybe its time to ge a little deeper. In any case thank you for your reply.
Kind regards Dust