Forum:Mobile format gone?

One reason I've really liked MA is that it has always switched from its standard look to a mobile-friendly format when I access it from an iPod (which is always). About 10 or so hours ago, however, it ceased doing that. Now it's very hard for me to read or even load pages. I have checked all my settings, read through both MA's and Wikia's stuff but found no mention of this.

Can anyone tell me if something changed or if I'm doing something wrong? (I don't think it's on my end, for I've accessed the site without logging on from a completely different mobile device.)

I apologize in advance if this is the improper place to pose this question; I wasn't sure where I should.

Regards,

--Cepstrum 12:28, September 21, 2010 (UTC)

Hi again. I hope someone can help. The mobile format is completely gone again. It's my only way of accessing MA. Has anyone a notion about what is going on or how I can fix this? I've tried everything I can think of: changing skins, clearing the cache, looking through Wikia....

I'm really stuck!


 * About ten or twelve hours ago, Wikia (MA's host) had a veritable plethora of CSS and DB issues. That could possibly be related.  I will forward this on to Wikia staff in the hopes that they can respond. -- sulfur 12:32, September 21, 2010 (UTC)

Wow, thank you, Sulfur. You sure are fast! This makes it now twice that you've stepped in to help me with my nascent — and feeble — attempt to become a useful contributor to MA. It's great having admins such as you and 31dot to guide and welcome editing newcomers/newbies.

I will eagerly await to hear what you discover. (I spent quite a bit of time looking through the matter at Wikia, reading through comments about whatever this "new theme" change that's coming etc. but to no avail. And CSS isn't a markup language I'm familiar with.)

Out of curiosity: how important do you think it is for an MA editor such as I to bother learning to use CSS markup? I wouldn't want to invest time learning a markup language unless it'd be really helpful. I don't see myself using it elsewhere than MA. But if it's recommended I utilize it, I could learn it (I'm not unfamiliar with markup languages — I use LaTeX a lot but don't do much Web stuff, other than using tools such as the high-level and simple markup styles of MediaWiki and Twiki. I'm actually much more familiar with the latter, for my lab uses it for collaborative stuff.)

Thanks again.

Regards,

--Cepstrum 12:48, September 21, 2010 (UTC)


 * CSS is the stuff behind the scenes that deals with the layout, look and feel. You won't use it on regular, standard articles.  If you're going to be involved in web design, then by all means, go the CSS route.  If not, not really worth spending a ton of time on it at the moment. -- sulfur 12:51, September 21, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm (tangentially) aware of CSS and their purpose, but I'm not into Web design. I've found simple HTML via a text editor suitable for the rare cases in which I've needed to create a Web page. I'm was wondering if I needed to learn CSS to get the mobile format back. From what you say, however, it appears to be probably a Wikia problem. I also wasn't sure if it'd be worthwhile learning it for use on Wikia, MediaWiki implementations, etc. I'm perfectly content with the basic settings (for now) as long as the mobile format returns. Thanks a lot for the heads-up. I was close to start learning CSS but will hold off.

If possible and you (or others) can spare the time, I'd appreciate it if you kept me/us apprised of the mobile formatting status. If it doesn't return, I'm pretty much locked out of MA. :(

Oh, one more thing: was Ten Forward the right place for me to pose this type of question?

Thanks again,

--Cepstrum 15:06, September 21, 2010 (UTC)

To Sulfur and others:

The mobile-friendly format has returned. That's great news. Unfortunately, much of the text is nigh-impossible to read because a lot of content is in dark-gray boxes with a font color that is also dark. Earlier I had this fixed by switching to one of the several ready-made CSS that made the text in these dark boxes a light (high contrast) color. Do you know what steps I need to rectify this? Do I need to make a custom CSS? As an example, I can't read almost anything on the main page, except for the initial paragraph. Most of the articles' text is ok (black type on white background), but sidebars, etc., suffer from the same poor contrast thing.

I'd appreciate any help. Thanks! --Cepstrum 17:05, September 21, 2010 (UTC)

mobile format gone again!
I've tried all I can think of: changing skins, clearing the cache, logging out, using a different mobile device, searching through Wikia....

I really need help! I can't utilize MA anymore. :(

What is going on? Do I need to do something? Is it an MA thing? A Wikia thing? --Cepstrum 16:46, September 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * Wikia has followed this up on their central forums. -- sulfur 15:01, September 23, 2010 (UTC)

There appears to be no mobile skin (aka Wikiaphone.css) now. For those of us who use mobile devices, if you add this bookmark to your browser and select it, it will change a web page to a more mobile-friendly format. It's not as good as how MA used to be, but it's acceptable for now. Here is the bookmark you need to use:

javascript:document.location='http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u='+document.location

Hope that helps until Wikia returns to supporting mobile users. --Cepstrum 20:32, September 23, 2010 (UTC)

Does *anyone* know how to get the mobile skin/Wikiaphone skin back?
I'm sorry for asking this again, but I can find no answers. I've looked around and asked at Wikia to no avail. It's really important for me, for I have to use a mobile device.

Is there something I need to do? Wikipedia, which also uses MediaWiki, has their mobile skin working fine. Is this just not of interest to people, who are able to access MA from a regular browser? It's highly frustrating for me: I can only use mobile Safari, and until recently, reading MA was great. Now it's incredibly difficult.

Thank you for your consideration. *Any* help/advice/news (even bad news) would be helpful. It's hard not knowing what's going on or if I'm waiting in vain. The forum Sulfur directed me to on Wikia hasn't proved useful. :( --Cepstrum 12:52, September 27, 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah, sometimes things need time... for the moment, all you can do is wait, because only Wikia is able to fix what they've broken - and apparently, they are already on it. Also, please don't open more than one discussion on a topic, but instead continue where you started... (this topic will be merged in 5... 4... 3...). -- Cid Highwind 13:01, September 27, 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Cid Highwind. I'm terribly sorry for double-posting! Rats. I'm not yet good at following guidelines, etc. I apologize for the mess.

One thing that "works": if I append "/?useskin=wikiaphone" to the main page, it will load in the mobile format. If I click a link, however, it reverts. Maybe I need to make a CSS that affixed that line to every page? I don't know.

Thanks again.

--Cepstrum 13:11, September 27, 2010 (UTC)

Finally Restored?
Hi again. It seems Wikia has finally fixed the issue. There now seems to be a new mobile skin. Great! Thanks guys, for bearing with me and my complaining!

--Cepstrum 11:08, September 29, 2010 (UTC)