This website hasn't had a funky new update, but a few big mobile sites have. I'm gonna talk about: Facebook, Twitter and Tugenda Bible (I know it's not popular, but I made it so I get to advertise it).
1) The facebook mobile website wasn't very good. There was no way to access events, no way to view a wall-to-wall, and overall, a cut-down experience. Instead was using the official app (on my HTC Desire), but my phone has limited storage space, so I was forever having to delete app-data! With the updated website I don't use the app, instead using the website; it's great! On the main page I can see: 1) any new (and recent) notifications, 2) my news feed and 3) if I have any messages. All on one screen.
2) Twitter. I've only just seen it today, but they've changed the mobile website. It feels less like a mobile website and more like an app. It feels much faster, and it should have me using it more.
3) Tugenda Bible. Up until the weekend there was no mobile version of this website, and I was contemplating making an Andoid App (no doubt inspired by The Apprentice). Realising the steep learning curve required, I decided to stick with HTML in the browser, particularly with the growth in HTML5. So if you have a mobile, have a look at: m.bible.tugenda.com. There are still a few bugs, I want to make it more app-like, but it works, and gets rid of those verse numbers which so often get in the way when reading the bible!
What do you think? Seen any good mobile websites?
Monday, May 16, 2011
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Looking good :)
ReplyDeleteHave you seen http://jquerymobile.com/?
I like the new Twitter site too.
ReplyDeleteCan you consider an option to turn on verse numbers in tugenda bible though - otherwise it'll make it hard to look up references.
I like the speed and design though - better than the YouVersion app on my phone!
@Paul.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I have heard of it, but hadn't really investigated. It looks amazing. I will investigate? Know of any good tutorials? (or is the site itself best?)
@Jon.
I will certainly aim to enable verse information at some stage. As a work around you can look up individual verses by using the search box (fixed). It'll return just the verse(s) you specify. E.g: http://m.bible.tugenda.com/read/Romans+1%3A18%3B3%3A23%3B6%3A23
You could improve the search:
ReplyDelete- search in a specific book
- search in a specific testament
On the mobile site, there should be a button, "next chapter", instead of clicking one of the small buttons.
I haven't actually used jquery mobile, only heard of it. It makes things look pretty, hehe
(I'd be happy to help you develop some of it once exams are finished -- only if you'd want any help)
css-tricks.com is pretty good :)
ReplyDeleteThe help would be cool. I'd especially like to see php written by a proper programmer not a hacker :-)
ReplyDeleteThe next/prev thing should work by clicking in the bottom two corners of the screen. The top left should jump to book selection and the top right to search/chapters, but these "hot corners" break some regular links, so will have to change in future updates.
For search (and all verse finding) I'm using the esv api which makes coding a breeze, but means I can't customise the results. That'll hasn't yup wait till when I do my own query parsing thinking.
Ohh right ok! Why did you decide to use that api instead of storing it in your own sql database? I thought you did that initially?
ReplyDeleteWhat's going on here? http://m.bible.tugenda.com/read/Genesis+48
1) Paragraphing. My database has text but no paragraphs. Big blocks of text are hard to read, but you can't just split each verse into a paragraph.
ReplyDelete2) Parsing queries. Splitting "Genesis 3:16; 4:12; Mark 3:1" into an SQL query isn't the easiest thing. Now ESVAPI does it all for me.
I may think about creating some queries to bring their info into my database, but I'm not sure about the data-sharing implications of that or how well it would translate into other translations.
On Genesis 48 something went wrong with the cache. I have now (hopefully) cleared out all error-ed entries, but haven't yet put in place anything to stop it from happening again.
jQueryMobile. See http://m.tugenda.com. I will soon add some javascript so that non-dotted queries will not go through Tugenda's server, but straight to Google.