Thanks for the feedback Oliver! We've heard this issue before and it's
definitely something to consider.
Note that we're going to start a *complete* overhaul of the Wikipedia
reader app in a few weeks, so we'll be wanting user feedback like this for
our design planning!
A faster app launch experience is definitely something we want in the new
app. We'll be separating many of the user interface components like the
search bar out of the web view, which should let the search fire up and be
working much quicker, without waiting on the full web view to initialize
and render a page.
We haven't yet thought much about what's the best initial view, but
possibilities include:
* default to the main page (like the current app)
* show the last-viewed article (like using the web browser)
* show a quick recently-viewed-stuff list
* ???
Whether it ends up selectable or not, we definitely want to make sure it's
*fast* -- the ideal is that you don't care what it loaded up because you
don't have to wait any extra for it. :)
-- brion
On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 10:42 AM, Oliver Zhu <ollie.zhu(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Mobile List
One of my biggest gripes about the app is the fact that I need to load the
front page onto my phone when I open the app up. In my scenario, I will
usually pull up the Wikipedia app to look up some facts to settle a
friendly discussion; all of my friends who use the app use it similarly.
Since I never use the app to *browse* Wikipedia like I do when I'm at
home at my desktop computer, there's no use in loading the front page. In
fact, it's pretty frustrating when the text I'm typing in the search bar
lags, or gets reset as I'm typing my entry, and I'm forced to wait for the
front page to load first. It sort of defeats the purpose of having quick
access to Wikipedia, since the alternative would be to open up a browser
and go to
wikipedia.org or flip through Google search entries.
(I'm using Version 3.3.1 on an iPhone 4 with iOS 7 if that's relevant.)
I was curious if there has ever been discussion about adding a setting
that would allow the user to see the search bar only instead of the front
page when she opens the app.
I've already posted about this idea on the Mobile/2013 strategy planning
page, but I'm not sure how deep into the idea list people are reading:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile/2013_strategy_planning#Option_to_only…
Apologies if this is not the appropriate forum to discuss this kind of
issue. I just subscribed to this list.
Thanks,
Oliver Zhu
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