Mobile App Anyone?

[DoctorDavinci]

I've got something to say, I got an idea for KSP today
And it doesn't matter much to me, as long as I write it down and it gets read.

I've got something to say, I think KSP is the greatest game these days
And it doesn't matter much to me, as long as she's played worldwide and <redacted>

Sweet Lovely Val
Just waiting for the button to be pressed
Come senior Jeb ... Lets have this one Last Caress

-------------------------------------------------

So it's wet, me igloo is a meltin', those damn homesteader's up yonder keep pokin' holes in me dam ... Can't they just leave a retired Canadian beaver alone?

... but I digress ...

Megots an idear up here in da great white north, we needs us a Mobile App for the forum community ... a good one conceptualized and built by the members of the KSP Forums

With the brain power we got lurking here I'm totally convinced that we, as a community, can come up with something with the straight goods

I visualize the community building this and keeping it going and working towards the best experience for all ... Enthusiasts of KSP, those who sleep and dream the KSP dream, I implore you, let's make this happen.

If we were to do this, it would be epic ... Thing is that we need to do it for ourselves and not be bugging Squad to do this for us as they are too busy creating this thing that we all dream about every night, especially since if it wasn't for them you wouldn't be reading this post or playing the most epic creation in recent memory (I mean Kerbal Space Program for those who didn't get that)

Do you really want to create a make work project for the Overseers of the Kraken?

 

Thoughts?

Edited April 2, 2016 by DoctorDavinci

[Columbia]

This is a nice idea, but the forum works pretty well in normal mobile browsers already.

[steve_v]

59 minutes ago, Columbia said:

This is a nice idea, but the forum works pretty well in normal mobile browsers already.

I'm not really a fan of redundant mobile apps either, but in this case the forum is almost completely unusable on mobile, at least for me (FF/Android). How am I supposed to enter Ctrl-right click (To remove a quote for example) on a phone?

Of course the solution is to fix the brain-dead WYSI(S)WYG editor, not build a mobile app... but whatever works.

[pandaman]

Overall I find this forum works ok on my mobile.

[Red Iron Crown]

Is an app for the forum even what is being suggested here? I can't make heads or tails out of the OP.

[cantab]

Squad could get in with Tapatalk, I know a lot of forums use it and it seems to be reasonably popular.

[DoctorDavinci]

Yes, an app for the forum that doesn't crash my tablet or phone

[Snark]

I agree that the forum is virtually unusable in mobile, at least on my device.  Examples of things that are hopelessly broken:

• Paragraphs
• Emoticons
• Quoting anything

...that said, I don't think that a custom app is the answer.  The answer would be for IPS to fix their mobile client.  When that would happen is anybody's guess, but until and unless that happens, I've pretty much resigned myself to treating the forums as read-only when I'm on my mobile device.

[DoctorDavinci]

12 minutes ago, Snark said:

I agree that the forum is virtually unusable in mobile, at least on my device.  Examples of things that are hopelessly broken:

• Paragraphs
• Emoticons
• Quoting anything

...that said, I don't think that a custom app is the answer.  The answer would be for IPS to fix their mobile client.  When that would happen is anybody's guess, but until and unless that happens, I've pretty much resigned myself to treating the forums as read-only when I'm on my mobile device.

Exactly my point ... if we as a community just sit around and wait for others to fix things it will never get done

We have a bunch of brainpower here on the forums so lets figure something out

[Snark]

4 minutes ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Exactly my point ... if we as a community just sit around and wait for others to fix things it will never get done

We have a bunch of brainpower here on the forums so lets figure something out

Yes, but the size of software you'd need for a mobile client that works and does everything that people need it to do would be a large task.  It's not collective brainpower, it's a coordinated software development project for a non-trivial app that will have to target a particular platform.

If someone can make that happen, great!  I'll happily hold their hat and cheer them on.  But the grizzled-old-software-engineer in me is skeptical that that would happen-- specifically, I'm skeptical that it would produce a product that's complete enough to be useful, bug-free enough to be usable, and finished in a time frame that's faster than just waiting for IPS to fix their stuff.  It's a pretty big ask.  (And would still leave anyone out in the cold who happens not to be on Android, or whichever platform you implement it on.)

And all of that assumes that IPS has an API that this hypothetical mobile app could call, which I don't know to be the case.  Maybe it does, but I don't know that it does.  You'd absolutely have to have that, or the entire idea would be a non-starter.

In short:  I love the idea, I just have doubts that it's realistic.  Would love to be proven wrong. 

[Wjolcz]

Oooooooh, I know exactly what that song is! The second part though... not sure.

Anyway, I have a few problems with the mobile version of the forum. Edited stuff doesn't get saved, can't get rid of the quotation blocks and a few other annoying things, so maybe a better version of the mobile forum could help with that.