Question Did You Know? We have a Mobile Style and Mobile App

[Admin]

You can select our mobile forum style in a few ways:

1) At the bottom left of every page is a drop down box that lets you select the style/skin (color scheme) of the forum. The main mobile style is called "Mobile and Tablet Lite"

2) Go to your User CP "Edit Options" Menu. In the bottom section called "Miscellaneous Options" you will find the Forum Skin selector. Scroll down to find "Mobile and Tablet Lite" or choose any one you like.

3) Use the following URLs www.car-seat.mobi or www.cso.pw

To return to the desktop version of the website, there will be a link on the top of the page that says "Desktop Style". Click it to change back to the full featured version of Car-Seat.Org.

We are transitioning to Tapatalk as our mobile app for iPhone, iPad and Android. The custom Car-Seat.Org app is no longer supported and is broken on some newer devices. For more information on Tapatalk, please see:

http://www.car-seat.org/showthread.php?t=271832

 

[Admin]

The old "Low Bandwidth Text" style is no longer available. Please use "Mobile and Tablet Lite" instead.

 

[Admin]

Testing a feature that automatically redirects mobile users to the mobile style. Please comment if you observe any issues. You should be able to override this choice if you prefer the desktop version. Unfortunately, Google is making it a necessity to serve a mobile friendly site to mobile users by default.

 

[Qarin]

Yeah, so, I arrive on my ipad, using safari. I get the ugly mobile version, designed for tiny screens. I click the box to go to the desktop version. Great! Later, I arrive to CSO again.... And it's back to the mobile version. If google is making you do this, google can go... ... ...itself. Inexcusable to not have the skin stick once set. Please fix!

 

[LISmama810]

Yeah, not thrilled. I don't really care on my phone, except I can't moderate from it so need to switch to regular.

I don't want mobile on my iPad, but it's there. When I switch over, it's back to the normal skin but on the default colors, so I have to switch back to Nightshade. :-/ I've only tried it once, but if I have to keep doing it each time I visit...that's gonna suck.

 

[SafeDad]

Google's deadline is April 21st. I will see if I can contact the author of the mobile device style selector before then. My only other option is a full forum upgrade, which has a built-in mobile selector, that you could test at carseatmoms.com to see if it is more persistent.

What happens if you select your desired style in your User CP -> Edit Options area at the bottom? Does that resolve it?

 

[SafeDad]

I wish there was an option to only force phones to mobile and not tablets. I'll look into alternatives for this over the next week or two, I've seen a couple possibilities that might work differently and only for smaller screen sizes.

Mine seems to be persistent on my android phone, I'll try our iPads later. Can you also try the setting in User CP -> Edit Options if you haven't already? In my experience, it doesn't work exactly the same as the drop-down menu at the bottom of each page. For example, I had somehow selected the Christmas style in the Edit Options area, and no matter how often I set the bottom of page selector to default, my next visit I would be back to Christmas. I finally found the Christmas setting I didn't realize I had changed. That was for desktop, though, not sure if it is different for mobile.

I am trying to get this to work without a full upgrade if at all possible. This current setup will remain a few days at least as a test, until I figure out which solution to try next.

 

[SafeDad]

I found a workaround for iPad. You should see the desktop full version now? I don't think I can do this for Android tablets but I am looking into it.

 

[SafeDad]

I found a workaround for iPad. You should see the desktop full version now? I don't think I can do this for Android tablets but I am looking into it.

For iPad users is it back to full desktop version now?

 

[LISmama810]

Yes!

 

[LISmama810]

Yes!

To clarify, that was an answer to your question about it being normal on the iPad. I wasn't just making random exclamations.

 

[Admin]

If google is making you do this, google can go... ... ...itself. Inexcusable to not have the skin stick once set. Please fix!

I agree about Google. The automatic mobile detection and mobile style really hurt the bottom line. Not only are there fewer ads per page that tend to be smaller, but even ads of the same size pay a lot less on mobile:-( I'm thinking Google's 2nd quarter revenues aren't going to be great this year, since advertising is the main source of income for them and they don't do mobile well. Granted, most websites went mobile a long time ago, but I suspect many have just made the transition this year because of Google's deadline.

Update: The plugin author has issued a fix to allow a permanent override of automatic mobile switching. This will only work if you are logged in, and it will bypass the automatic detection system on ALL your devices. You can still manually choose the mobile style of course, or any other. If/when the cookies for the device you are using expire or are cleared, it may then revert to the selection you made in your User CP.

For anyone still having issues with the mobile style, please try all 5 steps in this full procedure:


1) Make sure you have your preferred Forum Skin selected at the bottom miscellaneous section in your UserCP: Control Panel -> Edit Options -> Miscellaneous Options or- http://www.car-seat.org/profile.php?do=editoptions (at the bottom)

2) Go to User Control Panel ->Edit Your Details -> Disable Automatic Mobile Style Selection or http://www.car-seat.org/profile.php?do=editprofile (at the bottom)

3) Set to "YES = Bypass" and Save Changes

4) Clear cache and cookies. https://kb.iu.edu/d/ahic or https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/32050?hl=en

5) Then make sure to use the style selector at the bottom of the page to go to your preferred style/skin that you also selected above, or use a link below. This should only be needed once more to make it stick, but you could also bookmark the link if you wish to make sure:

Default http://www.car-seat.org/index.php?styleid=18

No Sidebar http://www.car-seat.org/index.php?styleid=65

Fixed Width http://www.car-seat.org/index.php?styleid=51

Solid http://www.car-seat.org/index.php?styleid=40

No Banner http://www.car-seat.org/index.php?styleid=62

Classic http://www.car-seat.org/index.php?styleid=21

ShelleBelle http://www.car-seat.org/index.php?styleid=20

Standard http://www.car-seat.org/index.php?styleid=38

Nightshift http://www.car-seat.org/index.php?styleid=41

Spring http://www.car-seat.org/index.php?styleid=42

Citron http://www.car-seat.org/index.php?styleid=43

Blush http://www.car-seat.org/index.php?styleid=44

Autumn http://www.car-seat.org/index.php?styleid=45

Grape http://www.car-seat.org/index.php?styleid=46

Office http://www.car-seat.org/index.php?styleid=47

Black http://www.car-seat.org/index.php?styleid=48

Greenish http://www.car-seat.org/index.php?styleid=49

Power Blue http://www.car-seat.org/index.php?styleid=50

 

[Admin]

Bump- new procedure to permanently fix unwanted switching to the mobile style.

 

[LISmama810]

I followed those steps on my ipad (which was not defaulting to mobile style--it's just what I happened to be on, and easier to make changes in UserCP).

Then I went and opened CSO on my iPhone and...it worked! Mostly. It didn't redirect me to mobile, but it did show the forum default skin rather than nightshift, which is what I have selected in my UserCP. Not an issue, though. I'm sure if I changed it at the bottom of the page on the iPhone it would work. I actually prefer the default skin on my phone, so I'm kinda hoping it stays that way.

Incidentally, after I cleared my history/cookies and signed back in, that weird graphics issue I'd been having was back with a vengeance, but apparently only on the homepage...

 

[Admin]

From what I understand, the user cp selection is there for when you login from a new device, or you clear your cookies or your cookies expire. It won't necessarily override your current selected skin. So, even once you set it in your user cp, the final step is to use the bottom of page style selector or one of those links. If both are set to the same skin, that should be final I hope!

As for the other issue- still no idea on that!

 

[LISmama810]

Well, didn't work. I just opened the homepage on my iPhone and it defaulted to mobile. I checked that everything was still correct in UserCP and it was. I cleared cookies and history and tried again. Still mobile.

 

[SafeDad]

Were you logged in? If so, you may need to follow the procedure on your iphone as well, at least the last step of clicking the link or using the style selector one final time to pick another skin.

 

[LISmama810]

Yeah, I was logged in. (Then I wasn't, once I cleared history and whatnot. Then I was again.)

I'll try again.

 

[LISmama810]

And...no. I did all the steps from my phone this time, and it's still redirecting me.

 

[LISmama810]

Also, when I click on "full desktop site," it takes me there, but with the default forum skin, not Nightshift, even though I have that selected in my User CP and had it selected at the bottom of the page.