The Flat Earth Society
The Flat Earth Society => Suggestions & Concerns => Topic started by: rottingroom on July 04, 2014, 10:17:10 PM
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Tapatalk is a forum app available for all major mobile operating systems. Many popular forums can be used in the app. You can monitor, post, and add photos to all your favorite forums, all in a single app. You can even elect to receive push notifications on your favorite threads.
Tapatalk can be activated for just about any forum very easily.
Just go to https://tapatalk.com/activate_tapatalk.php (https://tapatalk.com/activate_tapatalk.php) and follow the instructions. It only takes 15 minutes.
Tapatalk can be activated for the FES forum because FES uses the SMF 2.0 which is compatible with Tapatalk. The plugin can be found here (https://tapatalk.com/activate_tapatalk.php?plugin=smf). There is simple instructions there on how to install the plug-in so that people can easily view and participate on these forums from a mobile app.
You can even easily build your own forum app with a personalized app icon, look and feel, branding, plus additional features including Google AdSense, Google Analytics, Admob, DoubleClick for Publisher, iAd, Push Notifications and more - 100% under your own brand with full control. In other words the Play Store and App Store can have a personalized FES forum app and it can even be a money making opportunity for the administrators of this site.
Click here (https://tapatalk.com/build.php) for more info on how to build a personalized Tapatalk app.
I strongly urge the administrators to enable tapatalk for the FES society so that users can enjoy FES while on the go.
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Though your post reads like an advertiser, I actually kinda agree with this and would be all for it. I'm not fond of browsing FES on mobile; it works, but it's not a very enjoyable experience (especially with a high-res screen so everything's smaller).
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We use a git-based deployment system, so the usual mod installation process won't work for us. I'll have a look over the mod source later and see what we can do.
Also, I already frequently use FES on the go using a mobile web browser.
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The licence for this plugin doesn't seem to permit redistribution of the plugin:
https://tapatalk.com/forum_owner_license.php
Since we push all our code to GitHub (https://github.com/theflatearthsociety/forum.tfes.org) to permit visibility into and reuse of our modifications to SMF, I'm afraid we can't use that plugin as that would violate the licence.
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The licence for this plugin doesn't seem to permit redistribution of the plugin:
https://tapatalk.com/forum_owner_license.php
Since we push all our code to GitHub (https://github.com/theflatearthsociety/forum.tfes.org) to permit visibility into and reuse of our modifications to SMF, I'm afraid we can't use that plugin as that would violate the licence.
This doesn't make sense. Every forum I use, many of which also push their code to github, also use the Tapatalk plugin.
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Parsifal, you appear to be wrong (although I don't blame you - they have multiple conflicting licences throughout the site)
https://github.com/tapatalk/tapatalk-smf2
License
Tapatalk API for SMF 2 is free and open source software released under the BSD License. (http://www.simplemachines.org/about/smf/license.php)
This software includes a modified version of the SMF 2 open source library available at http://download.simplemachines.org/. These modifications were made by Tapatalk as of May 30, 2014.
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That said, if you're of the opinion that we should stick to the most prohibitive of the licences they provide, it appears that most of the code is isolated in its own files, so we could probably use it without redistributing it.
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It looks like the intent is for it to be freely reusable, they just suck at communicating that. I'll install this a bit later.
Our codebase is already illegal to distribute as it is thanks to conflicting licences between the nobbc and Banlist mods, so that issue will need to be revisited at some point anyway.
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I have no idea what kind d of problems exist on a mobile browser for you. I use opera mobile on this forum constantly and have no problems or difficulties.
Supes, why is smaller bad? Can't you just zoom in?
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I have no idea what kind d of problems exist on a mobile browser for you. I use opera mobile on this forum constantly and have no problems or difficulties.
Supes, why is smaller bad? Can't you just zoom in?
There is nothing stopping you from enjoying the site in the unmodified state that you do even if this is enabled. For those that are interested there are advantages, otherwise, why would anyone bother making mobile versions of anything? Furthermore, its massively convenient to have a powerful app where all the fora that you use across the internet are can be accessed. It's as easy, if not easier than using the site on the desktop.
I can't wait til you guys make this available if you do. I use it all the time for many other forums and it works massively well. I get notifications when discussions I'm in have new comments and replying to them is so much easier from the app than it would be otherwise, especially on the go.
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I have no idea what kind d of problems exist on a mobile browser for you. I use opera mobile on this forum constantly and have no problems or difficulties.
Supes, why is smaller bad? Can't you just zoom in?
There is nothing stopping you from enjoying the site in the unmodified state that you do even if this is enabled. For those that are interested there are advantages, otherwise, why would anyone bother making mobile versions of anything? Furthermore, its massively convenient to have a powerful app where all the fora that you use across the internet are can be accessed. It's as easy, if not easier than using the site on the desktop.
I can't wait til you guys make this available if you do. I use it all the time for many other forums and it works massively well. I get notifications when discussions I'm in have new comments and replying to them is so much easier from the app than it would be otherwise, especially on the go.
I'm not against it, just wondering what problems supes is having.
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I can zoom in, sure, but I'd rather not have to adjust the page size every single time I click a link, and I'm not gonna change text/page size permanently just because FES is tiny. It's not unusable and I browse it on mobile all the time, it could just be much less of a pain.
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I can zoom in, sure, but I'd rather not have to adjust the page size every single time I click a link, and I'm not gonna change text/page size permanently just because FES is tiny. It's not unusable and I browse it on mobile all the time, it could just be much less of a pain.
Fair enough.
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I can zoom in, sure, but I'd rather not have to adjust the page size every single time I click a link, and I'm not gonna change text/page size permanently just because FES is tiny. It's not unusable and I browse it on mobile all the time, it could just be much less of a pain.
What browser are you using on your mobile device? I use chrome and tfes runs great on it. I do have to zoom in every now and then but zooming is as simple as double-tapping... it takes about half-a-second to do.
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Chrome. I don't know why people think I'm saying browsing is difficult, I'm saying it's kind of annoying. No other sites I browse require me to zoom ever. I go there, click things and am good to go. Zooming in to do the delicate task of hitting a page number isn't hard nor particularly daunting in annoyance, but I'd rather not have to do those sorts of things at all.
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Chrome. I don't know why people think I'm saying browsing is difficult, I'm saying it's kind of annoying. No other sites I browse require me to zoom ever. I go there, click things and am good to go. Zooming in to do the delicate task of hitting a page number isn't hard nor particularly daunting in annoyance, but I'd rather not have to do those sorts of things at all.
Most sites have mobile versions that you are directed to. TFES has no mobile version, that's why you have to zoom at times.
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Yes, that is what I'm addressing.
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I would like to see TFES come to tapatalk. It's just a matter of getting the admins to go along with it.
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I've just had a look over this, and it makes me appreciate how good SMF programmers really are. This code is a steaming pile.
Thankfully, most of it is tucked away in its own corner where it won't impact any non-Tapatalk users. There will be a slight performance penalty due to the way it sends post notifications to Tapatalk users, but hopefully that won't be noticeable. If it becomes a problem, we can solve it at that point.
I've submitted a pull request (https://github.com/tapatalk/tapatalk-smf2/pull/19) for one particular issue that was just completely wrong before, and rolled that into our code. I'll do some more cleanup and install this Real Soon Now.
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This is now installed. I don't know if adding FES to the Tapatalk network is mandatory for using Tapatalk with it, but it requires me to create an account to do that. rottingroom, please feel free to do so on our behalf.
I'd like to set one thing straight for the record. This isn't something we can feasibly support, as none of the admins uses Tapatalk and it duplicates a lot of SMF's own code (from an older version than we're using, in fact). This means that the Tapatalk part of the codebase is going to be missing a lot of our bug fixes, feature enhancements and performance improvements, both from SMF itself and from us.
I don't know how heavily Tapatalk relies on the SMF side of things, and I don't use it so I won't notice if things are broken. We will of course make a best effort to fix problems as they are reported, but the web interface is the one we primarily support and the one that is tested and considered to work well. If you report bugs with the forum using Tapatalk, we ask that you please also try to reproduce them using the web interface.
I'm not trying to be difficult, it's just that this code really isn't supportable the way it is. I'm more than willing to provide it as a convenience mechanism for people who want to use Tapatalk, but understand that in doing so, we can't guarantee that all of the problems we've fixed over the past eight months are going to be fixed for you.
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TFES has no mobile version, that's why you have to zoom at times.
Oh, and it does, it just sucks (http://forum.tfes.org/index.php?action=forum;wap2).
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This is now installed. I don't know if adding FES to the Tapatalk network is mandatory for using Tapatalk with it, but it requires me to create an account to do that. rottingroom, please feel free to do so on our behalf.
I'll do that. Probably best if the admins have control of this stuff.
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Account created, API linked to our forum. I'm downloading the Android SDK to see if it works (as I currently don't have an Android device at hand)
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I've just synced all of Tapatalk's copies of the SMF code with the latest in our tree, as it turned out to be less cumbersome than I'd imagined. It should now hopefully include all our bug fixes, but I can't make any promises.
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Right, this thing just sent spam to all our members' e-mails without asking for permission (which hopefully won't happen again (https://github.com/theflatearthsociety/forum.tfes.org/commit/1f327e9d8820285bafbd7a43f7b65823c5e7f297). Apologies to everyone affected). It also wanted to insert its own ads into our forum.
Rottingroom, I'm gonna be honest, the longer I'm using this, the more frustrated I get. If Tapatalk continues to be as painfully disappointing as it is right now, I imagine we'll be reverting this very soon and instead focusing on our own mobile version of the site.
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Okay, this seems to work now. That is to say I tried logging in, it didn't work, we fixed it and now it works.
EDIT: Some minor bugs remain (you wouldn't believe it, this code is even worse than SMF itself), but it generally works. The minor bugs may or may not be fixed.
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Well there you have it. It works. Thanks!
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Well there you have it. It works. Thanks!
Yes, but I'm honestly not surprised the old site didn't bother. The amount of bugs we needed to fix to get it to the "it works!" state was just silly.
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Well there you have it. It works. Thanks!
With one amendment:
It only takes 15 minutes.
I would adjust this to say "It only takes 6 hours, half a dozen patches against the provided source, and nearly 200 e-mails spammed out to the forum user base".
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Well there you have it. It works. Thanks!
With one amendment:
It only takes 15 minutes.
I would adjust this to say "It only takes 6 hours, half a dozen patches against the provided source, and nearly 200 e-mails spammed out to the forum user base".
I see. Well sorry about that. I'm responding to you now from a notification from the app so I can already see the benefit.
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Well, obviously that's not your fault. I played around with the app a bit, and while it doesn't feel like my thing, I can see how it could be really useful to some. Even if we get a better mobile interface in the future, this is nice to have.
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I'm using it now.
My reaction: meh.
The interface isn't bad and typing is certainly easier than typing in a form box object on Opera but that's about it. I see no other benefits for myself.
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I'm using it now.
My reaction: meh.
The interface isn't bad and typing is certainly easier than typing in a form box object on Opera but that's about it. I see no other benefits for myself.
I would add that having all your forums in one place and push notifications are a plus.
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I'm using it now.
My reaction: meh.
The interface isn't bad and typing is certainly easier than typing in a form box object on Opera but that's about it. I see no other benefits for myself.
I would add that having all your forums in one place and push notifications are a plus.
I only visit 2 so for me, it's not really an issue.
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For some reason I can't find FES on the app.
EDIT: Nevermind, found it, but I'm starting to get annoyed by this app more with each passing moment. It won't let me sign in to the forum. It says "Snupes" doesn't exist, but then when I try to sign in under "Supertails" it says my password is incorrect (I assure you it is not; even reset it for good measure).
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For some reason I can't find FES on the app.
EDIT: Nevermind, found it, but I'm starting to get annoyed by this app more with each passing moment. It won't let me sign in to the forum. It says "Snupes" doesn't exist, but then when I try to sign in under "Supertails" it says my password is incorrect (I assure you it is not; even reset it for good measure).
I wouldn't judge just based on your difficulties logging in.
I'm not sure what could be the problem for you but I prefer to use social logins for things because I don't like making accounts for everything on the internet. With that in mind, you can make a Tapatalk account with G+ or Facebook and when you do then all your forums that have Tapatalk enabled will verify that you are you automatically. When I clicked the link from the email this morning, the app opened and offered to subscribe me to tfes but it didn't prompt me to input my username or password because Tapatalk already knew who I was, probably because of my email address, which tapatalk knows is associated with a user named rottingroom for this particular forum.
For things on my phone where I do have to input a password, I don't bother at all with manually inputting them because I am a lastpass user. I don't actually know any of my passwords.
Hope you can sort it out though. If you simply can't remember your password you might be able to open your security settings on Chrome for the desktop to see your stored passwords.
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For some reason I can't find FES on the app.
EDIT: Nevermind, found it, but I'm starting to get annoyed by this app more with each passing moment. It won't let me sign in to the forum. It says "Snupes" doesn't exist, but then when I try to sign in under "Supertails" it says my password is incorrect (I assure you it is not; even reset it for good measure).
Are you sure you're on the right forum?
It could be that it's seeing OTHER FES forum.
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For some reason I can't find FES on the app.
EDIT: Nevermind, found it, but I'm starting to get annoyed by this app more with each passing moment. It won't let me sign in to the forum. It says "Snupes" doesn't exist, but then when I try to sign in under "Supertails" it says my password is incorrect (I assure you it is not; even reset it for good measure).
Are you sure you're on the right forum?
It could be that it's seeing OTHER FES forum.
The other fes has not enabled Tapatalk.
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It doesn't work for me either. When I try to login it always say password incorrect.
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It doesn't work for me either. When I try to login it always say password incorrect.
I can only assume it is because you are inputting an incorrect password.
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I wouldn't judge just based on your difficulties logging in.
I would, because they are directly not allowing me to experience the app >:[
I'm not sure what could be the problem for you but I prefer to use social logins for things because I don't like making accounts for everything on the internet. With that in mind, you can make a Tapatalk account with G+ or Facebook and when you do then all your forums that have Tapatalk enabled will verify that you are you automatically. When I clicked the link from the email this morning, the app opened and offered to subscribe me to tfes but it didn't prompt me to input my username or password because Tapatalk already knew who I was, probably because of my email address, which tapatalk knows is associated with a user named rottingroom for this particular forum.
I would rather not use Google+ and I don't use Facebook, but that's not important. I shouldn't have to. The app should allow me to sign into the forum when I...you know...put in my username and password.
It doesn't work for me either. When I try to login it always say password incorrect.
I can only assume it is because you are inputting an incorrect password.
If you simply can't remember your password you might be able to open your security settings on Chrome for the desktop to see your stored passwords.
As I said, I am definitely putting in the right password. I don't doubt Yamato's problem, seeing as I'm putting in what is inarguably my password and it doesn't allow it. I even reset my password to something new and tried again when it wouldn't work; it still doesn't work.
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One thing I noticed is that the username is case-sensitive, which it wouldn't be in the web interface (my phone wanted to log me in as Pizaaplanet, which would always throw an "incorrect password" error, but pizaaplanet and the same password worked just fine).
Also, bear in mind that some keyboard applications will add a space after any word you write, so make sure you're logging in as "Supertails" and not "supertails" or "Supertails ".
There might be more to it. Like I said, this app is pretty buggy - we think we fixed most problems, but it's very possible that we missed something. Try fiddling around with capitalisation and such and let me know if that does anything for you.
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One thing I noticed is that the username is case-sensitive, which it wouldn't be in the web interface (my phone wanted to log me in as Pizaaplanet, which would always throw an "incorrect password" error, but pizaaplanet and the same password worked just fine).
Also, bear in mind that some keyboard applications will add a space after any word you write, so make sure you're logging in as "Supertails" and not "supertails" or "Supertails ".
There might be more to it. Like I said, this app is pretty buggy - we think we fixed most problems, but it's very possible that we missed something. Try fiddling around with capitalisation and such and let me know if that does anything for you.
I've already messed around with case-sensitivity and noticed the space thing right away, none of them fixed anything. >o<
I gave up and just used Google+. Thanks, though. Ugh
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I wouldn't judge just based on your difficulties logging in.
I would, because they are directly not allowing me to experience the app >:[
I'm not sure what could be the problem for you but I prefer to use social logins for things because I don't like making accounts for everything on the internet. With that in mind, you can make a Tapatalk account with G+ or Facebook and when you do then all your forums that have Tapatalk enabled will verify that you are you automatically. When I clicked the link from the email this morning, the app opened and offered to subscribe me to tfes but it didn't prompt me to input my username or password because Tapatalk already knew who I was, probably because of my email address, which tapatalk knows is associated with a user named rottingroom for this particular forum.
I would rather not use Google+ and I don't use Facebook, but that's not important. I shouldn't have to. The app should allow me to sign into the forum when I...you know...put in my username and password.
It doesn't work for me either. When I try to login it always say password incorrect.
I can only assume it is because you are inputting an incorrect password.
If you simply can't remember your password you might be able to open your security settings on Chrome for the desktop to see your stored passwords.
As I said, I am definitely putting in the right password. I don't doubt Yamato's problem, seeing as I'm putting in what is inarguably my password and it doesn't allow it. I even reset my password to something new and tried again when it wouldn't work; it still doesn't work.
Obviously this should work without having to log in to using G+ or Facebook and I have no doubt that it does. I just think that somehow, you are putting in the wrong password. The reason I made suggestions about social log-ins is because that eliminates whatever could be causing your problem.
As pizzaplanet mentioned. It might not be the password and it could be your username as well.
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One thing I noticed is that the username is case-sensitive, which it wouldn't be in the web interface (my phone wanted to log me in as Pizaaplanet, which would always throw an "incorrect password" error, but pizaaplanet and the same password worked just fine).
Also, bear in mind that some keyboard applications will add a space after any word you write, so make sure you're logging in as "Supertails" and not "supertails" or "Supertails ".
There might be more to it. Like I said, this app is pretty buggy - we think we fixed most problems, but it's very possible that we missed something. Try fiddling around with capitalisation and such and let me know if that does anything for you.
I've already messed around with case-sensitivity and noticed the space thing right away, none of them fixed anything. >o<
I gave up and just used Google+. Thanks, though. Ugh
Well that right there indicates to me that there is a proper way to put in your password. Who knows what went wrong, I'm not going to pretend like I know. All we know is that something did. In any case, hope it works for you.
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I finally managed to solve the problem with the wrong password thing.
When tapatalk asks for your username and password, he is actually asking for your email and password.
It worked at least for me, without the need to reset the password.
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Pizzaplanet or Parsifal:
So far on my end everything is looking great except for one thing. It seems that embedded YouTube videos do not display properly when viewed on Tapatalk. It doesn't even leave a url there instead of the embedded video. It leaves a "#".
I wonder if this is something that needs to be fixed on your end because other forums do have clickable thumbnails with embedded YouTube videos that open the the video in the YouTube app.
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I finally managed to solve the problem with the wrong password thing.
When tapatalk asks for your username and password, he is actually asking for your email and password.
It worked at least for me, withoutnthe need to reseg the password.
I put in my forum login without e-mail and it worked. Weird.
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I'm using tapatalk now. Very odd. I need to get used to this.
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Pizzaplanet or Parsifal:
So far on my end everything is looking great except for one thing. It seems that embedded YouTube videos do not display properly when viewed on Tapatalk. It doesn't even leave a url there instead of the embedded video. It leaves a "#".
I wonder if this is something that needs to be fixed on your end because other forums do have clickable thumbnails with embedded YouTube videos that open the the video in the YouTube app.
Blegh. I can see why that happens. Our YouTube embedding plugin simply, well, embeds the video. If Tapatalk doesn't support Flash, things will break.
As predicted, some of our modifications to SMF will break. YouTube embedding is not standard functionality, so it's broken. This looks like an easy enough fix, so I'll do it, but please keep in mind that we made it clear we will not provide support for Tapatalk.
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Pizzaplanet or Parsifal:
So far on my end everything is looking great except for one thing. It seems that embedded YouTube videos do not display properly when viewed on Tapatalk. It doesn't even leave a url there instead of the embedded video. It leaves a "#".
I wonder if this is something that needs to be fixed on your end because other forums do have clickable thumbnails with embedded YouTube videos that open the the video in the YouTube app.
Blegh. I can see why that happens. Our YouTube embedding plugin simply, well, embeds the video. If Tapatalk doesn't support Flash, things will break.
As predicted, some of our modifications to SMF will break. YouTube embedding is not standard functionality, so it's broken. This looks like an easy enough fix, so I'll do it, but please keep in mind that we made it clear we will not provide support for Tapatalk.
Nice to know, appreciated and understood.
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Done (I think)
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Done (I think)
Yup. Thanks! [emoji1]
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If I knew coding stuff I'd gladly support the app. Now that I've gotten through the massive pain that is getting it to work, it's pretty handy.
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I've been using tapatalk all day. I love it. Finally, rottingroom has contributed to this amazing society for once.
I also want to thank the mods and my mother. Thank you.
Also, God.
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I have "notifications" turned on but I never get a notification when the criteria is met. Is this a glitch or am I doing something wrong?
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I have "notifications" turned on but I never get a notification when the criteria is met. Is this a glitch or am I doing something wrong?
There are 2 places where you need to edit notifications. There is a global setting for the whole app. You get to this from the main part of the app. Then there is the forum notification settings in case a user wants different preferences for each forum. You get to this by dragging out the navigation menu and then a gear icon will appear in the action bar.
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omg I just posted using tapatalk
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Yeah it's easier than using a browser, not a fan of the interface but whatever. Would this app use less data than visiting the actual website?
Nevermind, looks like I managed to break tapatalk.
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Would this app use less data than visiting the actual website?
If they've designed it well, it might, but from what I've seen of their code, I wouldn't count on it.
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Nevermind, looks like I managed to break tapatalk.
How so?
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Nevermind, looks like I managed to break tapatalk.
How so?
I tried to back out of TFES so I could search for more forums to join and the app promptly crashed. So I force stopped it but that did nothing. Restart, nothing. So I just uninstalled it. And if it isn't going to use less data then I've pretty much run out of reasons to bother with it.
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Nevermind, looks like I managed to break tapatalk.
How so?
I tried to back out of TFES so I could search for more forums to join and the app promptly crashed. So I force stopped it but that did nothing. Restart, nothing. So I just uninstalled it. And if it isn't going to use less data then I've pretty much run out of reasons to bother with it.
I've never had that problem with the app.
Have you entertained the possibility that your mobile device sucks?
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Okay, rottingroom is a Vauxy alt.
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Nevermind, looks like I managed to break tapatalk.
How so?
I tried to back out of TFES so I could search for more forums to join and the app promptly crashed. So I force stopped it but that did nothing. Restart, nothing. So I just uninstalled it. And if it isn't going to use less data then I've pretty much run out of reasons to bother with it.
Apps force close sometimes but I can tell you that I haven't had tapatalk force close on me. Not yet anyway. I'm not sure why force stopping followed by a restart didn't fix it but restarting your device may have fixed the issue.
In any case, I think it probably does use less data because once it is connected to the server it doesn't have to download all the graphics on the forums each time it loads. Only the avatars, images within posts and texts. As a matter of fact I saw an option in there to not download any avatars or images if you have a slow connection too.
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Okay, rottingroom is a Vauxy alt.
That's offensive.
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Nevermind, looks like I managed to break tapatalk.
How so?
I tried to back out of TFES so I could search for more forums to join and the app promptly crashed. So I force stopped it but that did nothing. Restart, nothing. So I just uninstalled it. And if it isn't going to use less data then I've pretty much run out of reasons to bother with it.
I've never had that problem with the app.
Have you entertained the possibility that your mobile device sucks?
It's a Galaxy S4 running basically bone stock. So I'm gonna blame this one on the app.
Anyway, I reinstalled it and it's working alright now. I can't manage to replicate the issue which is good, I suppose.
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It's a Galaxy S4 running basically bone stock.
Have you entertained the possibility that your mobile device sucks?