Author Topic: Furtopia app  (Read 5980 times)

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Offline Bluefruityloop

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Furtopia app
« on: July 22, 2013, 02:22:52 pm »
Has any one thought about making an android app for furtopia? I'd do it but I'm not exactly the best at app builing so I don't think I could do a good enough job. Can whoever owns this website make or hire someone to make this app I'd be happy to test it and provide feedback and whatnots. I would really enjoy a app for my tablet so I don't have to go to the website. Cus imma lazy like that XD
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Offline redyoshi49q

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Re: Furtopia app
« Reply #1 on: July 22, 2013, 03:24:41 pm »
I would really enjoy a app for my tablet so I don't have to go to the website.

What benefit do you think an app would provide that a web browser wouldn't?  I haven't browsed the forums on a tablet, but I have done so on a borrowed Android phone on a few occasions; as far as I was able to tell, the Android browser I used fully supported the forum website's technology.


Cus imma lazy like that XD

If this is your primary reason for wanting an app, might I suggest that you create a shortcut?  No apps required!
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Offline Bluefruityloop

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Re: Furtopia app
« Reply #2 on: July 22, 2013, 04:40:17 pm »
NoI think having an app would be bennifital because I like to use my tablet landscape veiw and to type in landscape veiw is easier for me as well as reading however to type I have to go to vertical veiw or I can't read what I'm typing and since irun a few apps at the same time flipping my tablet between the two tends to slow it down. Another bennifit would ge that links wouldn't be smaller than my finger making me press the wrong thing and then havening to go back. If I zoom in I don't have a problem clicking links however the zoom retracts back to 100% as soon as I go to a new page. There are many other things that I personnally belive could make this a more fun forum for peoole with tablets and phones. For example if you dont have wifi we could make itnso that you could store posts on the device untill you get into a place with it so if you have an oppiphoney out and about you can type it up then and there so you dont forget it. We can also make a widget for the app where the person/animal XD has their post or posts of their choosing on a screen and they can see instantly when they get a reply and in turn reply accordimgly
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Offline Bluefruityloop

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Re: Furtopia app
« Reply #3 on: July 22, 2013, 04:49:06 pm »
I would love to design the app if you have no problem with that I could send the plans and if I had help I would even make it for free I have the program I just dont know them languige
Live long and prosper my friends.
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Offline redyoshi49q

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Re: Furtopia app
« Reply #4 on: July 22, 2013, 05:59:40 pm »
NoI think having an app would be bennifital because I like to use my tablet landscape veiw and to type in landscape veiw is easier for me as well as reading however to type I have to go to vertical veiw or I can't read what I'm typing and since irun a few apps at the same time flipping my tablet between the two tends to slow it down. Another bennifit would ge that links wouldn't be smaller than my finger making me press the wrong thing and then havening to go back. If I zoom in I don't have a problem clicking links however the zoom retracts back to 100% as soon as I go to a new page.

These seem like things that would be best addressed by looking into a different Android browser.  Not only would this make it easier to browser Furtopia without the need for a dedicated app, it would also make browsing other websites easier as well.  The page I linked in my previous post mentioned xScope, but I can't tell if it's only offered for a fee (it's only $3, though) or if the developers offer a free version as well.  The Dolphin browser is free, though, and it seems to be one of the most commonly used browsers for Android.  There are other browsers (including free ones) as well; feel free to take a look around to see if there's one you like better than the default.

For the sake of being complete, although I don't think this would be the most fitting to your needs, it's nevertheless worth mentioning that the forums also support a very basic but extremely compatible interface (it's most useful for web browsers of the lowest end cell phones, but might also be useful for windows/linux shell browsers as well).  To use it, go to http://forums.furtopia.org/index.php?wap2.  Again, this probably isn't what you're looking for, but I mention it because it's a relevant possibility.



There are many other things that I personnally belive could make this a more fun forum for peoole with tablets and phones. For example if you dont have wifi we could make itnso that you could store posts on the device untill you get into a place with it so if you have an oppiphoney out and about you can type it up then and there so you dont forget it.

If my understanding of the Android platform is correct, you can mostly do this without the need of a dedicated app as well.  If you load a webpage and start composing a post, you can continue to compose that post even when the device loses network connectivity.  When you have Internet access again, you can simply submit the post.  In the meantime, you should be able to switch to using other applications; your browser tab will be preserved until you access the web browser again.  You wouldn't be able to generate new posts previews without a connection (since this feature is implemented server side rather than client side), but aside from that, you should be able to compose an entire post without being connected.  Alternatively, you can use a text editing app and copy/paste the text from there into your browser.



We can also make a widget for the app where the person/animal XD has their post or posts of their choosing on a screen and they can see instantly when they get a reply and in turn reply accordimgly

The forums have a few notification features.  I described them elsewhere; the explanation I previously gave on them is quoted below:

  • The forums have a thread and board notification feature.  At the top right or bottom right of any thread's page, click the "Notify" text to enable or disable the feature for that thread in order to get notified of new posts.  There's a similar feature for subforums (for example, the RP subforum) which notifies when new threads are posted in that board (it doesn't notify for new posts in existing threads).  You can adjust several settings of notifications in your profile; you can also see a list of threads and boards that you currently have notifications enabled for.  Unless you've changed your settings from the defaults, you will get email notifications for threads and boards you've explicitly enabled them for (they won't be implicitly enabled by your posts), but you'll only get one message for each consecutive unread reply (you won't get another email for further replies in a given thread until you visit that thread on the forums) and the email will lack the message content.  From my understanding, these notification emails are sent more or less immediately, and I myself find them extremely useful when coupled with email notification software.

  • There's also apparently an RSS feed for the forums.  If you have an RSS reader, you'll see an RSS icon when you visit forum pages, and you can add the feed through that.  It's content is essentially an unstyled and condensed version of the Recent Posts page (RSS readers will provide basic formatting to this data, which will make it more human readable).  Having said that, I don't know how frequently the feed updates (the XML doesn't list a TTL for the feed, so my guess is that a standard or client specific default value would be used instead).

One of these two features (or a combination of the two) might be fitting to your needs.

You should be able to find an email notification app for Android relatively easily.



I would love to design the app if you have no problem with that I could send the plans and if I had help I would even make it for free I have the program I just dont know them languige

You may have noticed that I've been trying to suggest ways for you to get the features you want that don't involve creating a new app.  That's because for a lot of computer science problems, using a preexisting solution is usually preferable to making a new one if the former exists and satisfies the requirements (putting aside cases such as "reinventing" common tools for educational purposes).  There's a couple of reasons for that.

First and foremost, developing a useful and production worthy app takes a *lot* of time.  Sometimes, that time is warranted.  For example, consider a feature that would be simple to implement and that a large portion of the member base would really like but isn't yet implemented by existing tools.  It would make a lot of sense to spend time developing that feature.  However, if existing tools already implement that feature well, writing new software to implement the same feature would needlessly expend time through development.

Second, the quality and security of a software tool are related to the number of active developers and testers for that tool.  Established tools have a user base that submits bug reports and a team of developers who fix the bugs that are found.  If a large scale app with lots of features (for example, a site specific web browser) is developed by only a single person and is tested by only a very small handful of people, bugs and security vulnerabilities are more likely.

In computer science, it's prudent to first ask "Is there already something that does what we want?" and *then* to ask "Should we make something that does what we want?".  This generally works better for everyone involved.
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Offline Kobuk

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Re: Furtopia app
« Reply #5 on: July 22, 2013, 06:53:14 pm »
The only person who would allow or give further tech advice to having a Furtopia app is the site's owner which is WhiteShepherd.

Offline Mylo

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Re: Furtopia app
« Reply #6 on: July 22, 2013, 07:58:24 pm »
I would really enjoy a app for my tablet so I don't have to go to the website.
What benefit do you think an app would provide that a web browser wouldn't? 

The same reason that hundreds of thousands of apps have been created in the first place.  Optimizing websites for small touchscreen devices.

Offline Bluefruityloop

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Re: Furtopia app
« Reply #7 on: July 24, 2013, 04:58:12 pm »
I do see where your comingfrom however all these fixes to these problems are separate things one would need to do. While creating an app would put all those different things into one so people who dont see this thread and these fixes can have them all. Personally the fact that it would take a long time I have no problem with my goal In life is to be a programer and android development would be a great specialisation developing this app would give me the experience needed to reach my goals
Live long and prosper my friends.
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Offline Weisseman

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Re: Furtopia app
« Reply #8 on: July 24, 2013, 06:29:04 pm »
You'd need staff approval before you'd be allowed to develop anything that interacts with the database.
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Offline Mylo

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Re: Furtopia app
« Reply #9 on: July 24, 2013, 07:49:00 pm »
Even a mobile theme would be nice, you know, not a scaled down HTML low-bandwidth mobile website...like, something where Active Topics is bigger than a few pixels.

Offline Weisseman

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Re: Furtopia app
« Reply #10 on: July 24, 2013, 08:44:46 pm »
I've looked into mobile themes on SMF's site. Strangely enough there aren't any that support the version we run. We'd have to make one really.
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Offline Alsek

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Re: Furtopia app
« Reply #11 on: July 24, 2013, 09:10:51 pm »
My experience with mobile apps for websites is that they are quite frustrating and usually make the forum much harder to use.  (I like to be able to zoom,  for example.)

Offline Mylo

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Re: Furtopia app
« Reply #12 on: July 24, 2013, 09:20:38 pm »
That's the fault of the people who make the bad mobile website.  Just because those mobile websites were frustrating doesn't mean that it isn't possible to make a mobile app or theme that's actually good.  

This is all theoretical of course, because actually making one of these things would take a lot of time, and probably wouldn't be worth all that effort.  However, a mobile interface would make it a lot more convenient, in my opinion, to use Furtopia.  

Offline SkyFire

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Re: Furtopia app
« Reply #13 on: July 28, 2013, 08:00:54 pm »
Hey, as far as I know, this is the only forum available and high functioning on a flip phone. Don't change a thing, please.
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