22
votes
Best way to browse/use Tildes on mobile?
Hi fellow Tildes Beta users!
I primarily do my browsing on an iPad or my iPhone. Currently I'm using Chrome.
Until an app is made, what do you all find the best way to browse Tildes is? The formatting is a little wonky for me, which is perfectly understandable. It's not exactly a deal breaker, but it would be a lot easier having a more optimized experience.
I doubt I'm alone, so what're y'alls preferences?
I don't think there's going to be an official app per se, as per The site is the main mobile interface, not an app:
But with an API, the possibility for apps becomes available:
But I think more time should be invested in making Tildes work well with content readers (reading mode in Safari, etc) rather than developing an API initially. It looks pretty decent on mobile for me.
Wow, "Solarized Dark" actually looks really nice on mobile. As someone who's been frustrated with the desktop views, it looks like it's designed for mobile, and would work nicely for me there. On desktop, I dislike dark views and prefer light, contrasty views, but on mobile I'm almost exactly opposite.
Edit: after trying it out, I prefer "Solarized Light" on my phone. Looks quite nice. Why hasn't reddit ever had a mobile site that looks and works as well as Tildes already does? It's very usable and polished.
Me too, I'm loving Solarized Light on my iPad. It makes such a difference for a seemingly insignificant change. It makes all the boundaries really pop and all the little UI subtleties are more visible, in a pleasing way at that.
And shhhhh, we don't say the "r" word on here (kidding).
Solarized Light was actually the original design for the site, I only added the white version after a lot of early complaints about the beige/yellow-ish color.
It's not beige/yellow-ish, it's parchment! And parchment is classy. (Well, that's how it works in my head!)
Oh man, now imagine if there was a little texture added? Pure class my friend.
Well, you have a good eye! Thanks for all the work you do here, even the people and the interactions are top-notch.
I can't take much credit, it's a fairly well-known color scheme. I've used it for years for my consoles/editors/etc. (though mostly the dark version) - https://web.archive.org/web/20180706133112/ethanschoonover.com/solarized (archive link because the site doesn't seem to be loading right now).
I'm perhaps a bit unusual among programmers, I prefer dark-on-light text rather than full dark modes as so many do today. I find my eye strain is reduced not by inverting colors, but by reducing contrast between foreground and background. Solarized is basically perfect for that, and aesthetically pleasing to boot.
I haven't really thought about the eye strain thing, but your reasoning seems pretty darn logical and I'd have to agree with you.
The Solarized Light theme plus Flux/Night Shift is a perfect combo (at night at least).
I just wish I could like it as much on my laptops (work and home) and desktop. I dislike all of the available views on a PC screen. I just need a black-on-white view, with web-standard link colors.
Sorry mate, deleted the comment by mistake but it's posted verbatim as another comment under yours.
Honestly, I wasn't sure how it looked on desktop, so I suppose it's working just fine here on mobile in retrospect. Thanks!
I use Tildes on Firefox for Android and it works perfectly fine for me, maybe your mobile browser's default font settings aren't up to snuff?
What are you trying to say?!
But I actually just updated Chrome based on your comment and it looks better, so thank you!
I'm not sure how it works on IOS, but on android you've got an option to "Add site to homescreen" or something like that. Basically this "appifies" the site, creating an icon and making it so that it's no longer a tab in safari or whatever, but rather it shows up in the app switcher as its own standalone thing.
Woah, thank you! I never knew this was a feature... and it even works on my ancient version of Android! Maybe I can finally close some of the 50 tabs I have open on mobile.
it works on safari too
This is the superior tilde browsing experience. Mobile site works wonderfully, and home screening it makes it feel native.
The site works fine for me on mobile. I switch between Firefox and Opera, and I don't really need anything more than the mobile version offers already.
I use firefox with ublock origin. Does IOS firefox not support extensions?
Apple is weird about browsers on iOS. They're all required to use the Safari rendering engine so every "alternate browser" is basically just a UI wrapper around Safari.
Nitpick: there are two engines a browser can use. UIWebview, which is slower, but has more control over cookies and javascript (used by tor on ios) and WKWeview, introduced in iOS 8, which doesn't have as much control, but is faster (used by Firefox.)
Don't be too disappointed. At least you can get OS updates for older phones. I tend to hold onto a phone for several years, and the lack of new Android features I could be using has me considering an iPhone for my next phone.
My 5S from 2013 is still running strong with the latest developer beta of iOS 12. I guess we can thank Apple's closed source code and tight control over manufacturing for the lack of fragmentation?
I find it looks better on iOS Chrome vs. Safari, however only on my iPad, where Safari hasn't been updated in a very long time. On Safari on my new iPhone X it looks just as good.
Agreed, I love the simplicity of Tildes' UI. It's not bloated at all and serves its function efficiently.
Wait...Firefox Focus doesn't work on Firefox? Given, I know nothing about it, but that just seems strange.
Also, I wasn't aware of the themes before your comment, and now I'm using and loving one of the solar ones (light). So thanks again!
Firefox on iOS doesn't have plugins like it does on Android. Firefox Focus exists, but as a separate app.
I think this is due to: All browsers on iOS must use the native webkit engine, and/or, Apps aren't allowed to run scripts, interpreted languages, etc.
Ah that makes sense.
Doesn't Firefox ship with the Disconnect lists anyway? The only thing that Focus does that Firefox doesn't is block fonts.
While I prefer Adguard (FOSS, didn't pull any shenanigans with the legacy product), there's no denying that content blockers with Safari are far more powerful than third party browsers. Well, except maybe icab mobile, which lets you fiddle with CSS.
It'd be great if there was a way to quickly toggle between them, so I can use dark at night and light during the day.
I like them because they really highlight the various boundaries of the UI.
By the way, have you tried Brave browser? It's got it's issues (leaks IP when on a VPN, broken fingerprinting protection), but it's got adblocking, https everywhere, and limited script controls, with a slightly better ui than snowhaze.
Hey, since you've got 1blocker X, can you check if element hiding works on tildes.net? Adguard just throws up an error.
Also, apologies if this has been posted before. I don't see a way to search, however that could be a result of me being on mobile. I suppose I could have used Google, hindsight is 20/20...
The site is still closed without an invite code. Google wouldn't be able to find posts.
Ah, great call!
I don't believe a search feature is complete or deployed yet. Supposedly it's coming in time!
Yup: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/issues/90
I actually really love the fact that there's no app. My phone has awful storage, and quite frankly I don't like having too many apps on my phone anyway, which is why I use reddit on mobile without an app. But I don't like it. The first time you go on it asks you three times if you want to use the app, and after that, every once in a while it will ask you again, just to make sure you don't want to be using the app. It drives me insane. But anyway, I love mobile tildes on chrome, I love the way it looks and functions. One of my favorite features is (I know this is weird but still) that tildes doesn't have its logo on screen when I'm scrolling. On reddit mobile there is a huge orange snoo in the top left corner, whereas that dissappears on tildes once you start using the site. I appreciate that tildes doesn't need to scream it's existence at every passersby that glances at my phone.
But yeah, I love the mobile version and I think it's very well designed. Honestly it gets a 10/10 from me.
The web should be consumed on browsers IMO.
your opinion may have been changed by now, but was there anything in particular that made you assume/desire an app was going to be made? is there any feature you've had trouble with, or more an impulse based on how terrible the experience the majority of websites have?
Nope, while it was only yesterday I was brand spanking new to this platform and figured that the UI wasn’t made for mobile.
Now that I’m familiar with it, I’m liking it a lot and have no need for an app whatsoever. Oh, and at the time I was using a really old version of Safari on my iPad, so when I switched to and updated Chrome, it looked great. But don’t worry, Safari looks great on my iPhone, where it’s updated. So all around it was a mix of me being unfamiliar and using an outdated browser.
Since most sites have apps, and this being sort of a social network, which ALL have apps, I just thought one may have been in the works at the time.
Do you help do dev work here?
I haven't personally made any code contributions to tildes just yet, but I do make a lot of my own web-only apps and was curious about your initial mindset :) glad to hear you're enjoying the site so far though :D
I saw earlier on Reddit that someone was using an app called Anker to turn Tildes webpage into an app. I have been using it myself for the past few minutes and it looks pretty convenient.
you can do the same thing natively if you go into the page settings (on the three dots icon) and click "add to homescreen"