Hi all,
since there's already several million iPad (and soon, other tablet) users out there, I thought I'd try one in the Apple store to see what Wikipedia looks/feels like. Generally, I think it's very nice, with one exception. In "portrait" mode, the sidebar takes up a lot of real estate. Especially when you scroll down a long page, there's this annoying white bar on the left that serves no real purpose. Also, IMHO, it destroys that "book feeling" that would fit so well with the iPad.
So I wrote a quick JS hack that /should/ hide the sidebar on the iPad. Instead, it shows an icon in the top left corner that, when "finger-clicked", will show the sidebar again, in case you really want it.
Demo (on Commons, because of the "withJS" option there): http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?withJS=MediaWiki:Adjust4iPad.js
Now, that should /only/ work on the iPad. Could someone please confirm this and tell me if it's an improvement. On image pages it probably doesn't matter a lot, but more text-laden pages like http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Welcome?withJS=MediaWiki:Adjust4iP... http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reusing_content_outside_Wikimedia?... it should make a visible difference.
If it is as good as I suspect, we could use it by default on the Wikipedias etc. There's lots of room for improvement; maybe the sidebar could appear when switching to landscape mode (as in the mail app). The usability experts may want to take a look :-)
Cheers, Magnus
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On 06/15/2010 02:30 AM, Magnus Manske wrote:
Hi all,
since there's already several million iPad (and soon, other tablet) users out there, I thought I'd try one in the Apple store to see what Wikipedia looks/feels like. Generally, I think it's very nice, with one exception. In "portrait" mode, the sidebar takes up a lot of real estate. Especially when you scroll down a long page, there's this annoying white bar on the left that serves no real purpose. Also, IMHO, it destroys that "book feeling" that would fit so well with the iPad.
So I wrote a quick JS hack that /should/ hide the sidebar on the iPad. Instead, it shows an icon in the top left corner that, when "finger-clicked", will show the sidebar again, in case you really want it.
Demo (on Commons, because of the "withJS" option there): http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?withJS=MediaWiki:Adjust4iPad.js
Now, that should /only/ work on the iPad. Could someone please confirm
this and tell me if it's an improvement. On image pages it probably doesn't matter a lot, but more text-laden pages like http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Welcome?withJS=MediaWiki:Adjust4iP...
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reusing_content_outside_Wikimedia?...
it should make a visible difference.
If it is as good as I suspect, we could use it by default on the Wikipedias etc. There's lots of room for improvement; maybe the sidebar could appear when switching to landscape mode (as in the mail app). The usability experts may want to take a look :-)
According to my local iPad <s>cultist</s> enthusiast, it works.
- -- Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 5:37 PM, Cary Bass cary@wikimedia.org wrote:
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On 06/15/2010 02:30 AM, Magnus Manske wrote:
Hi all,
since there's already several million iPad (and soon, other tablet) users out there, I thought I'd try one in the Apple store to see what Wikipedia looks/feels like. Generally, I think it's very nice, with one exception. In "portrait" mode, the sidebar takes up a lot of real estate. Especially when you scroll down a long page, there's this annoying white bar on the left that serves no real purpose. Also, IMHO, it destroys that "book feeling" that would fit so well with the iPad.
So I wrote a quick JS hack that /should/ hide the sidebar on the iPad. Instead, it shows an icon in the top left corner that, when "finger-clicked", will show the sidebar again, in case you really want it.
Demo (on Commons, because of the "withJS" option there): http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?withJS=MediaWiki:Adjust4iPad.js
Now, that should /only/ work on the iPad. Could someone please confirm
this and tell me if it's an improvement. On image pages it probably doesn't matter a lot, but more text-laden pages like http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Welcome?withJS=MediaWiki:Adjust4iP...
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reusing_content_outside_Wikimedia?...
it should make a visible difference.
If it is as good as I suspect, we could use it by default on the Wikipedias etc. There's lots of room for improvement; maybe the sidebar could appear when switching to landscape mode (as in the mail app). The usability experts may want to take a look :-)
According to my local iPad <s>cultist</s> enthusiast, it works.
Thanks! Any feedback on whether it's better or not?
Magnus
I don't have an iPad but I did succeed to fake the User-Agent from the iPad and it worked fine.
Tho it does have a few usabilty issues to deal with:
- Clicking the logo doesn't make a lot of sense. - Perhaps a fixed-positioned half-round arrow-button about a third down the screen would make more sense - Both ways (being able to show it and hide it again). - If we're going to make work if this, perhaps a dropdown menu could work aswell (one that has a scrollbar, so that the user can stay at the current position in the page).
I think the first three wouldn't be hard. The latter would require to digg up the JavaScript event HTML5 and/or Apple iOS for a drag-movement.
I'll try some scripting of my own later this week
-- Greetings, Krinkle
Op 15 jun 2010, om 19:13 heeft Magnus Manske het volgende geschreven:
On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 5:37 PM, Cary Bass cary@wikimedia.org wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
On 06/15/2010 02:30 AM, Magnus Manske wrote:
Hi all,
since there's already several million iPad (and soon, other tablet) users out there, I thought I'd try one in the Apple store to see what Wikipedia looks/feels like. Generally, I think it's very nice, with one exception. In "portrait" mode, the sidebar takes up a lot of real estate. Especially when you scroll down a long page, there's this annoying white bar on the left that serves no real purpose. Also, IMHO, it destroys that "book feeling" that would fit so well with the iPad.
So I wrote a quick JS hack that /should/ hide the sidebar on the iPad. Instead, it shows an icon in the top left corner that, when "finger-clicked", will show the sidebar again, in case you really want it.
Demo (on Commons, because of the "withJS" option there): http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?withJS=MediaWiki:Adjust4iPad.js
Now, that should /only/ work on the iPad. Could someone please confirm
this and tell me if it's an improvement. On image pages it probably doesn't matter a lot, but more text-laden pages like http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Welcome?withJS=MediaWiki:Adjust4iP...
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reusing_content_outside_Wikimedia?...
it should make a visible difference.
If it is as good as I suspect, we could use it by default on the Wikipedias etc. There's lots of room for improvement; maybe the sidebar could appear when switching to landscape mode (as in the mail app). The usability experts may want to take a look :-)
According to my local iPad <s>cultist</s> enthusiast, it works.
Thanks! Any feedback on whether it's better or not?
Magnus
Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
Not finished yet, but here is what I got so far: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?withJS=MediaWiki:IPadSidbarSlide...
-- Greetings, Krinkle
Op 15 jun 2010, om 19:13 heeft Magnus Manske het volgende geschreven:
On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 5:37 PM, Cary Bass cary@wikimedia.org wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
On 06/15/2010 02:30 AM, Magnus Manske wrote:
Hi all,
since there's already several million iPad (and soon, other tablet) users out there, I thought I'd try one in the Apple store to see what Wikipedia looks/feels like. Generally, I think it's very nice, with one exception. In "portrait" mode, the sidebar takes up a lot of real estate. Especially when you scroll down a long page, there's this annoying white bar on the left that serves no real purpose. Also, IMHO, it destroys that "book feeling" that would fit so well with the iPad.
So I wrote a quick JS hack that /should/ hide the sidebar on the iPad. Instead, it shows an icon in the top left corner that, when "finger-clicked", will show the sidebar again, in case you really want it.
Demo (on Commons, because of the "withJS" option there): http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?withJS=MediaWiki:Adjust4iPad.js
Now, that should /only/ work on the iPad. Could someone please confirm
this and tell me if it's an improvement. On image pages it probably doesn't matter a lot, but more text-laden pages like http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Welcome?withJS=MediaWiki:Adjust4iP...
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reusing_content_outside_Wikimedia?...
it should make a visible difference.
If it is as good as I suspect, we could use it by default on the Wikipedias etc. There's lots of room for improvement; maybe the sidebar could appear when switching to landscape mode (as in the mail app). The usability experts may want to take a look :-)
According to my local iPad <s>cultist</s> enthusiast, it works.
Thanks! Any feedback on whether it's better or not?
Magnus
Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l