Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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iHalfBakery

A phone-friendly version of the Half Bakery
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I use an iPhone a lot, and I have all of my favourite sites' apps on my iPhone. I haven't been able to find any app, nor even any suggestion that someone should devise an app, for the iPhone. It can't be too difficult (that statement is probably terribly demeaning to the sorts of people who actually do all of the programming, which I'm sure is immensely complicated, I really have no idea), and it'd be really helpful, it just irks me when I have to open Safari, which is really irritating on the iPhone, to look through the HB.

All that's necessary is a reformatting of the site, and some kind of convenient navigation page. I'm not familiar with BlackBerrys and other PDAs, but I'm sure there's some kind of rough equivalent to the iPhone "app", and it could be adapted for them as well.

I think it'd be really helpful; then again, you seasoned Half Bakers (I'm sure that pun has been kicked to death, but there you go) might not want to deal with people like me having unfettered access to the HB.

duh_don, Jun 04 2009

http://www.halfbakery.com/lr/ The lo-res (or low-rent?) version. [jutta, Jun 04 2009]

Palm HalfBakery Portal Palm_20HalfBakery_20Portal#964803600
[xaviergisz, Jun 04 2009]

iPhone has poor rendering? http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=672
There's an RSS client for that. [reap, Jun 05 2009]

the default /lr halfbakery home page. /lr/view/fxc=@Halfb...n=tiny:t=halfbakery
Which may be different from your own personal root page, if you've edited that view. [jutta, Jun 05 2009]

[link]






       am I right in saying that if you are using your phone, you're not at work and so should not be reading the hb...?
po, Jun 04 2009
  

       It's amusing how all of a sudden Apple touts the fact that, basically, they haven't got a good enough browser as an advantage - "There's an app for that!" That should be "You'll need an app for that!"   

       So, what's needed beyond what the lo-res version (link) does right now? And is there some way we could be adapting the lo-res to be usable (if it isn't already) for iPhone that doesn't hurt usability on the other platforms, or does this require a completely new thing?
jutta, Jun 04 2009
  

       I don'thave a problem with the b/2 on iPhone and Safari. I don't really have a problem with Safari full stop.
gnomethang, Jun 04 2009
  

       Does the RSS feed version of the Halfbakery look OK on an iPhone?
hippo, Jun 04 2009
  

       //Does the RSS feed version of the Halfbakery look OK on an iPhone?//
I don't know - I've never been!
gnomethang, Jun 04 2009
  

       Ah, so not an Asimov story about how a website becomes sentient and subverts the laws of computing in order to free itself from its human masters then?
DrBob, Jun 04 2009
  

       //delivers the latest headlines to my phone //   

       How does it differ from the RSS feed in results?
Jinbish, Jun 04 2009
  

       //If the Halfbakery wasn't the last site I visited, I hit 'menu', tap 'bookmarks', select 'My Halfbakery Page', then tap 'refresh'. Very easy to do, but I guess compared to using an Apple, anything's easy.//
Strange to Relate, but using the Apple iPhone it is only 3 touch options to open any bookmarked website - no need to refresh, neither!.
gnomethang, Jun 04 2009
  

       I could read the h/2 on my nokia 2600c - using either the built-in browser or opera.   

       Scrolling down to read the latest annotaion to a Vernon idea was rather tiring, however.
neelandan, Jun 04 2009
  

       //Both the low and hi res are long winded// ... //Scrolling down to read...// That's a content issue - no amount of css or iClever is going to solve that, short of rewriting everyone's ideas and annotations into punchier versions that fit better on a 2" by 3" screen.   

       Maybe just replace all the text with nice screen-filling icons representing croissants and fishbones underlined with a caption taken from an idea that refreshes randomly whenever you shake your iDevice.   

       Then, if you like the look of it, you can go to the iHalfbakeryStore and download your idea and add it to your library.
zen_tom, Jun 04 2009
  

       //You viewed the source recently ?// [marked-for-tagline] ;)
zen_tom, Jun 04 2009
  

       Gives me an idea...
Dub, Jun 04 2009
  

       You think the low-res HTML is long-winded? Can you be more specific?
jutta, Jun 04 2009
  

       Ayn Rand meets the halfbakery. That's all I can think of when I see this title.
blissmiss, Jun 04 2009
  

       Alright, things are going a little bit over my head, so I'm going to clarify using my own, admittedly limited, vocabulary.   

       1. Formatting. When I open HB on Safari with my iPhone, I have to zoom in and zoom out to see an overview of the page and to read what's written there, alternately. I'd like it if I had a page that fits the screen of the iPhone, with legible text at the same time. I don't know what you call it, but I've seen it for other sites, and I know it's possible.   

       2. Navigation. Over and over again, I press the wrong link in Safari, because the whole system is so fiddly. If there was a proper site map, with sensibly-sized (for the iPhone) buttons and maybe even a proper scrolling iPhone menu, as opposed to a web-based one.   

       3. Storing login details, and downloading pages. The former irritates me, when I have to log in over and over again (might be my settings); the latter would just be useful.   

       In my opinion, the low-res version doesn't add anything to it on the iPhone, it doesn't address those three issues at all. Again, I don't know how complicated the making of an app is, but I can imagine it being really handy if it were done well.   

       [po] is there some sort of convention I'm not aware of, that you're only allowed on the Half Bakery when you should be doing what society deems "meaningful" work? Isn't it a crime to spend any spare time you have not on the bakery? [DrBob], [blissmiss] I apologise that my idea didn't live up to the expectations its name raised.
duh_don, Jun 05 2009
  

       // Both the low and hi-res depend heavily on tables and top-up font styling.   

       Ah. Actually, the lo-res version has a lot less table-based styling; none at all in the actually idea text, and none if you're selecting a non-table based presentation for the root page. But it's true that the default lr/ view is a table, with a comparatively small amount of styling in it, some of which is annoying and useless.   

       There are some things that CSS is great at, but laying out dynamically sized table cells isn't one of them, in my admittedly limited experience.   

       duh_don, thanks for the details. That bump in po's cheek is her tongue.
jutta, Jun 05 2009
  

       //That bump in po's cheek is her tongue.//

Are you sure? Normally it's a choccie biscuit.
DrBob, Jun 05 2009
  

       could be both!
po, Jun 05 2009
  

       I was writing tongue firmly in cheek as well, don't you worry.
duh_don, Jun 08 2009
  

       [21Q] can you give me a path for this? I'm not getting it, and would love to do this.   

       [jutta] As [duh_don] said, the iPhone system is fiddly. And as you said, (indirectly) this is a failing of the iphone, not of the HB. The problem is readability without having to expand the text in the little screen, which is likely to do any number of unintended things.   

       This annotation took me fourteen years to write
'Cause I'm twenty feet tall.
nomocrow, Jul 16 2010
  

       It works!   

       The lr version loads faster out here in the country, I think.
nomocrow, Jul 16 2010
  
      
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