Tom MacWright wrote:
Hey Lester,
I agree entirely - thus far we aren't focusing on the mobile version of the
site. It's never been very polished, and recent changes aren't focused on
improving it significantly.
As far as why, it's pretty simple - changes to the site are extremely
time-intensive because of its myriad uses and the necessity of having a
community process. That is, we've needed to focus on specific parts of the site
because, even if we agree that many things need to be done, we only have enough
designers & developers to implement one or two things a month.
And some of us are hampered by the choose of tools that was made previously!
I think there are two solid ways forward here:
First, which is admittedly less likely, is if anyone wants to adopt the task of
maintaining, testing, and improving the mobile site, and pushing those changes
through.
There are a few options as a good starting point, but your 'third' point is
probably accurate here.
Second, which is more doable but more likely to get over-communicated, is for
someone to write a simple page pointing to good mobile options. For instance,
users of GPS units should easily find out about Garmin extracts, smartphone
users should easily find editors that work on their phone or apps that use
OpenStreetMap data.
http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/Mobile+Computing :)
But I'm getting bogged down by what does not work in each of the options and I
don't have time to try the options that are missing. I need to switch from Locus
to one of the other options just to establish where the identified safety issues
actually arise from! If you can't trust a configuration then it's unusable, and
that is part of the current problem.
Independent OSM-based tools do a better job at the very specific use-cases
people have on mobile - whereas the website focuses strongly on one use case,
editing, and has no smartphone-compatible editors.
Adding data via the tablet is easier than actually using it on the tablet ...
(To tackle the inevitable points of argument that follow that: yes, there are
things that do this, but we need to do better. No, there's no committee to
decide and yes the best way to do it is to do it, even if it's very low-tech.)
We need well documented user reports on the available tools rather than just
'choose the option that works for you' ... I have yet to find a routing package
that gives SAFE directions on UK motorways! This was the whole reason for my
closer investigation.
Tom
On Sun, Jul 21, 2013 at 11:26 AM, Lester Caine <les...@lsces.co.uk
<mailto:les...@lsces.co.uk>> wrote:
With the arrival of a 'new' set of controls, and the discussion on front
page, I feel that it IS necessary to open this discussion a little wider.
Having been using the new interface on mobile devices I find it much less
usable than the older set-up. But that is not to say that the old one was
actually usable! There is a need for a different map interface that works
better with mobile devices. Even the routing demos have mixed results on
tablets and mobile phones. I've been working on my own 'front end' simply to
provide one that I can tailor for the devices I am using. The old N900 used
to work well, but the newer devices are difficult to use 'on the go'. As an
example, the old TomTom sat nav was easy to use while driving, but the
current replacements I've tried to use with the Galaxy4 can be dangerous at
times as they wander off doing their own thing, and you have to stop to get
back to a state where you can continue following the route.
It's obvious that the new map interface is not designed for mobile devices,
so where should we discuss that development and how it would fit in with an
improved front end. It's not just a matter of directing to 'a map' but more
important is directing to safe options for those of us who ARE using the
tools every day. The current options are both difficult to find, and have
clear information on how safe they are when using them live! Disclaimers of
accepting no responsibility may cover any legal liability, but essentially
say 'here is a tool - but you should never use it!'
And discussion on a more open platform would also be appreciated rather than
on development platforms that we do not subscribe to because we use
different development tools!
--
Lester Caine - G8HFL
-----------------------------
Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact
L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk
EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/
Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk
Rainbow Digital Media - http://rainbowdigitalmedia.co.uk
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