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Wings Over Scotland


A little more application

Posted on March 18, 2015 by

Alert followers of our Twitter account will already know this, but we figured we better tell everyone else too. Wings now has a handy little app for Android mobile phones and tablets. Knocked up by a kind reader, it’s nothing more than the website with the addition of automatic notifications every time there’s a new post, so you need never miss an article. You can download it for free by clicking the image.

wingsandroid

However, in the light of our wildly successful fundraiser, a more full-featured (but still free) app for both Android and iOS is now high on our priorities list. So we’d like to know what you’d want to see in it.

The main extra thing we want to include is an offline-sync function, so that you can read every Wings article without having to be connected to the internet, like the existing multi-platform app Pocket. (Syncing would be optional and customisable, as it’d probably mean taking up a hefty chunk of your device’s storage space.)

We’re also pondering a more refined Search system (though in fact the site’s existing one is remarkably effective). Other than that, though, we haven’t got many thoughts on it, so tell us what you need. And if you’ve got 10 seconds to fill in the poll below too, that’d be a big help. Cheers.

How do you currently read Wings? (tick as many as apply)

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Ray

I wouldn’t go overboard spending time on this to be honest. If people can easily access the articles on their phone and receive notifications when a new one surfaces (and this already happens), what more do you need? And yes, having used the search function a lot during the referendum campaign, it’s pretty good as it is.

Doug Daniel

Pay someone to make a proper version of the Johann Lamont Word Mincer thing I did THAT YOU NEVER EVEN USED. Obviously a bit pointless now she’s a lowly backbencher, but maybe a Labour policy-generator (accepts SNP policy as input and outputs the opposite) or Auto-Murphy (randomly references football and his shoe size) or something.

Capella

Great news. I just posted on the previous thread about a couple of problems.
1 the page doesn’t automatically resize to fit the tablet window.
2 there is no refresh button
3 It doesn’t save name and email details and doesn’t post instantly. something to do with cookies I believe.
otherwise a great innovation. Thanks

Milady de Winter

Whoop. I’ve got it on my phone now. Even AVG approved its installation!

Bugger (the Panda)

Live posting and not the 20 to 40 minutes delay.

If it is due to spam bots deluging the site, fine, if it is a WordPress problem, are they aware of it and is there a solution in the offing?

Keep on keeping on.

Genghis D'Midgies

I don’t often connect with my Windows phone but I nevertheless chose: “On a desktop or laptop computer AND other devices”

joe macfarlane

Already got it from google play store, just search for wings over Scotland , excellent stuff

Eppy

Sorry, only got an ancient laptop but anything that will piss off Douglas Alexander still more is fine by me.

mike

Posting and responses in threads, it would really help to follow the discussions.

No no no...Yes

Great enhancement. Wings- moving forward for Scotland.

asklair

Content, content and content, thats why WOS is great, been using my mobile phone to view early morning before work. From my life of knocks and kickings, KISS, Keep It Simple Stuart.

David

The current app is slower than accessing the site via the Android/chrome browser. Speed is important, so opting to download (or even not download) images and video may be good? New article notification important. Comments and sharing functions, although I think the latter is more important for a mobile app if costs bite. Simple, clean interface. Ability to select articles by type and topic, plus a search function. Maybe even a ‘report a story’ function?

phoenix

Newbie and liking it. Should be able to post something intelligent soon.

Jim Thomson

At least one happy bunny here in Troon (me).

Betty has also alerted a local grumbler, who is about to wander off overseas (you know who you are!), and he is now ecstatic (well, kind of).

tamson

I want a cybernat-themed message alert noise to sound whenever I get a WoS alert.

Does anyone have a field recording of a midge available as an mp3?

Author_Al

Perhaps a button to link to Twitter, or put a feed of your latest few tweets?

Good quality photos that can be held up to someone’s face then resized so disbeliever can read your demolition of SLAB/TORY/DEM propaganda – and be instantly converted to the Good Side, i.e. Wings.

Valerie

I’m sad, it won’t download to my Kindle 🙁

Nation Libre

Great idea, something I had advocated myself. More and more people are accessing this sort of info on mobile devices. It’s very important that it’s as user friendly as possible

I get this is just an intro app and the notification feature is great. As stated, after that it’s simply like a browser but actually with some less functionality

I’ve said it before but if you want an idea of a good app, check out The Guardian Android app. Side swiping from article to comments is really handy

Love the idea of the syncing for off-line content, really handy and would encourage even further browsing of previous articles

Money well spent I say

Steve

If the app could just list the articles in a text list (from the RSS feed) and load the article content when you choose one that would be bliss. I don’t mind the whole website loading but it means a bit of zooming to get to the actual text (which is all I want).

piper bryce

My inclusion would to have FB and twitter interactions being available on the app as I find it tedious to specifically follow conversations.

caz-m

Rev, are you trying to give Dougie Alexander a heart attack. All this modern technology and commuication is killing the Labour Party, don’t you know.

This could be an App too far.

Juteman

Lucky Bugger. My posts still vanish into the cosmos for 20 minutes or so. Posted at 10.24

kiwi connection

Can we have a lie-o-meter which tracks the lies disseminate bydparty during the run in to the election

Nation Libre

and
the usual ‘share’ facility
edit comments

Mealer

Stu,
Offline sync function?This whole post is complete gibberish to me ( on the brae face)so I’ve nothing to contribute.Except to say “syncfunc” sounds more “with it”.

galamcennalath

Yes, iPhone version, please.

Also, note the number of votes and how quickly they clock up!

There are a lot of people on WoS 🙂

Gareth

Having the option to customise how you receive notifications would be good. For example, the option to add/remove sound, vibrate, pop-up and LED notifications when a new article is posted.

Keep up the great work, Stu!

lawrie

New app just looks like the online version which isn’t really suited for phones.
A more mobile friendly version would be nice

Stephen

Although the website works fine as it is, may I suggest updating the site so that it is more optimised for mobile and tablets. A website that flows to accommodate the screen size of any device would be most welcome so no more need to zoom in to read the articles.

osakisushi

About the only thing I would like see on an APP would be a news report that the North East and North West of England have voted to apply to join an independent Scotland.

That would work.

Macart

I use a house brick with big buttons, so mainly laptop and desktop are my only access to the site.

Gillian_Ruglonian

Hoy Stu!
I’ve been reading wings for years on my kindle, so don’t forget about me, I didn’t even have a box to tick!! 😉

PB

Responsive design for the website should be a priority. It’s quite fiddly viewing the site on a phone. This change would mean users of all devices can enjoy the site more. Also, google is about to start decreasing the ranking of sites which are not mobile friendly.
Keep up the great work!

Jim Thomson

In terms of functionality, the Mk2 version should cater for those who might not have a 4G, or even 3G, connection.

i.e. it needs to be data-frugal until a full article is requested.

Maybe an option to only load the article first and then “opt-in” to the btl comments.

Where there are bucket loads of comments, another option to load them in batches of, say, 10 or 20 or a number chosen by the user.

almannysbunnet

I don’t know how much an app costs but rather than reinvent the wheel I’d look around for the good ones and try and replicate. Hate to say it but the BBC news app (android) is really good. Lets you create your own favourites etc. We need to attract the non believers too so they can be exposed to the truth. You’re a gamer Stuart, have a wee game where they have to read a “Murphy/BBC lie exposed” type article before they can reach a sports link. 🙂
By the way if the app is going to take a big chunk out of your budget I think we would happily fund it separately.

K1

I like the offline idea.

Is there anything that can be done about the time delay on posts?

The comments on this are increasing with no concrete solution available, it really is very annoying to constantly refresh over and over, I often have to leave it for an hour or so to just get a sense of flow btl.

Norman Russell

A Windows app would be good????

Michael Duvic

It’s 2015. I’m all for it! iPhone/iPad please.

Scott

Curious: Has a mobile version of Wings (with the option to switch to the desktop version if the user chooses) been considered?

Not everyone will want to download a separate app but may appreciate the site automatically displaying a more simplistic version which makes better use of the mobile platform.

Muscleguy

PLEASE make it so that it can be moved from internal storage to an SD card. We don’t all have Android phones with large internal storage. If the downloaded pages could also end up on the SD card that would be a boon. I’m in ‘not enough space for update to install’ territory.

The Wings app and the pagepress one for reading the Sunday Herald were the last straw and neither do this. Aaargh.

Gordon

Wouldn’t waste money on native apps personally. Expensive now and commits you to future spend to keep them updated etc. And are people really going to install an app when they wouldn’t visit the site anyway?

While the current site renders pretty well on mobile (on iOS anyway), I’d say you’d be better spending the cash on making a proper responsive site.

I would also ensure the RSS feed continues to work properly and change it so it provides the full article. This is a big thing for those of us that use RSS and means that sharing from within the RSS reader is hugely more likely.

I know some people don’t like RSS as they don’t get the ad revenue (not applicable here as you don’t serve ads) and miss out on the analytics, but for a site that is all about getting the message out there it’s a cheap/free method to do that, highly valued by those that use it.

Lenny Hartley

BTP the delay is probably not the Rev’s site its only affecting a few users, maybe operating system/IE version or something, I and many others have not had this issue so therefore its unlikely to be the host site that is causing the delay in posting problem.

rongorongo

One of the many great things about Wings is its comments section. In both the app and the website, I’d like to see something that would make it a little easier to navigate them. If readers were able to upvote particular contributions – and if those which scored particularly highly could be readily accessed via browse or search – that would be be a big plus for me.

At present the most active stream of comments seem to be added to the most recently made post. When a shiny new post arrives everybody de-camps there to talk about that – and the old post gets left behind. That is OK – but it means any comments which are later added to an old post – tend to be overlooked. Which is a shame. The ability to subscribe to comment updates in a particular thread would be a nice one for me.

I’d like to see a little more expansion of user profiles too – it would be good if there was a space where we could write a little about ourselves if we wanted to. Whilst most of us would probably want to retain our privacy as posters – having a little more biographic information would be a good defence against the “vile anonymous cybernats” tag.

nick

Nice gimmick, but I successfully use rss feeds to my email and go on to the site when I see a new notification which tickles my political fancy – as it were . . .

Andrew

I’d like a better mobile web version first.

I’m currently based in China (I took a flakey after the referendum and sulked my way here), and Wings is seriously slow via Chinese internet. Its okay on desktop, but on mobile, more often than not, it doesn’t load. I also can’t download the app as Google play is blocked here. Its like a whole country run by the BBC.

If you can use a simpler layout with less features that loads more quickly on mobile, that would be excellent!

CJCH

If you’ve budget for site improvements, how about taking a look at Bella Caledonia’s mobile site design?

It’s one of the most readable ones I’ve come across: you go straight to the lead article, and as you scroll down it loads older items on demand, no clicking required. Text is of a readable size immediately you land on the page, no zooming is necessary, etc.

To my mind it’s a near perfect mobile site design: you get your new content fix immediately you land on the page, and the only interaction required for casual browsing of older content is “swipe up”.

By contrast, WoS requires a zoom in order to be able to click on the lead article link, a wait and then another zoom after the page load in order to scale the content to a readable size, and to go to the next article you need to go back-wait-scroll-zoom-click-wait-zoom..!

Desimond

I look forward to ‘The Wee Red Book’ link taking pride of place on the site both pc and mobile and being able to say “Oh facts you want is it?…2 secs ( presses 2 buttons)….here you go….take your pick…more?…oh here you go( presses 2 buttons….loads…fill your boots!”

Craig P

I like the Bellacaledonia version of the small form factor site. This shows posts in a blog style, but with the whole post displayed, as opposed to partial posts as is the case on Scot Goes Pop / blogger. This means I can read several articles on one data grab – good when out and about on dodgy 3G.

The option to view only comments made since last visit would be nice.

Bugger (the Panda)

@ Lenny Henry

So I am right to be paranoid?

🙂

[…] A little more application […]

Stevie Cosmic

Could we please also have an app for win8.1 phones?

And as someone suggested earlier, one that can be stored off internal memory on an SD card?

Desimond

Dont forget the flippant and the infantile.

Hows about a response app where with one press of a button we can give an immediate response to any casual lie or utterance of bolloxness given by a Unionist MP on TV, in public or on the doorstep.

The response could be a booh, a cry of “Shame on you!” or a scream of “Red Tory, Red tory!”, a fart noise, a sarcastic slow round of applause, a reknowned piece of labourspeak…anything that would really annoy them would suffice.

bob sinclair

Install this on your Labour voting friends phones & they will never miss a wings article again. Go on, you know it makes sense.

Kenny

Yeah I mean just a handy app to read posts on iOS would be perfect. Would be good to be able to ‘favourite’ posts for easy access later. Could also feature polls? I’m sure it will be just as fantastic as everything else to do with WOS!

Suzanne K

My only request would apply to both this website and the app.

Please could the comments section allow replies? Because of the delay in some comments appearing, the thread of conversation can sometimes be difficult to follow and replies appearing much further down the page can seem irrelevant?

Servius

I would echo what has already been said about NOT building an app, but focus instead on making the website a great experience on a range of platforms. Building and maintaining a good app is difficult. Building an OK app is actually quite easy, but an OK app is really just a distraction. Focus on a responsive website, great content, and an engaging commenting system.

My favorite news app at the moment is The Guardian on iOS. But that app has taken a LOT of investment to get to where it is.

Rod C

A quick reference for refuting the more common Better Together & now Labour lies would be really handy.

Author_Al

Make the ‘scrolling’ blue square (with white arrows) bigger so my fat fingers don’t keep pressing the text below, sending me to earlier posts.

DavidDesu

I find using apps for website content a bit rubbiah frankly. I do everything via the browser and never even remember I have a particular app for a particular site. Work to make the site just work on mobile. Doesn’t need to be flashy, but just work, and were all good. App would be good for some people but I feel most will use the browser on their phone over a proprietary app.

Jakedm

It may be better making the website more responsive. Then when you wrap it in an app – it just works!

Just a thought of course but having the basics done well will save costs when trying to expand platforms.

I have a decent bit of experiencing managing one of the biggest corporate Scottish websites for the past 10 years!

J

shug

Can I sak if you could put up a wee questionnaire
have you checked you are on the electoral register
did you find you had been removed

If yes voters, and I guess we all are on here, see a trend or a large nomber of problems, there is an interesting question to ask

MJS Dundee

I use a windows phone, but I’m not sure there’s much point in spending on a Wphone app unless it’s going to do something the website doesn’t. As it is I can turn the website into a sort of phone app (link on front screen), tap it and thereafter it is the website. All websites need re-sized manually on screen but that’s hardly a burden.

I think the BBC and other websites rejigged for mobile are pretty naff on the whole (for navigation compared with the main sites) and I’d rather deal with the main sites, re-sizing as needed.

Jim Thomson

O/T looks like the money men are pre-loading the markets ahead of the budget. GBP down significantly against both USD and EUR

Colin

Personally, rather than write a complete app, I’d just make the site mobile friendly.

Also, you have Google Analytics running on the site, doesn’t that tell you how people are accessing the site as that information will be contained in the User Agent header the browser sends?

Les Wilson

I would like to have a UK debt calculator, so we can see, just how bad it is.

Other info updating on such things, would be a useful ready reckoner on the real state of the Union.

galamcennalath

A couple of posts have mentioned, please ensure the app can work in low data mode.

This is Scotland and somewhat neglected for mobile coverage, 3G/4G is unavailable in most places across the countryside. If you can get a signal, it’s often GPRS/2G. In fact, right now I have wifi, but no phone signal of any type!

Someone said RSS should include the entire text of articles. I agree.

broken arrow

Some of the features you’ve suggested for the app are already available in other ways anyway. For those that follow multiple sites, maybe a wee tutorial post on rss readers (free rss readers are available for all platforms) would be of more benefit for the pro-indy community?

george

the pocket idea is a good one for those who might need need wings while out for a long walk around many doors. a lot of the other ideas seem to be about the site rather than an app though

Chris Whyte

I couldn’t find it on the App Store and I’m not sure if the Android version will work on my iPad. As for advice on content, put in a proper link to the shop and update it for on-the-go Wings kit.

Richie

I like the idea of the sync function. I don’t get a reception at work so that would be handy.
The current app doesn’t allow you to change any settings (or I couldn’t find out how to). I’d like to be able to change the font size. It’s a bit hard to read on my phone.
I’d also like to turn off notifications.
Maybe a setting for changing the image quality/weight for people with slow connections too?

Desimond

Hows about a WingMan ( sorry ladies, darn marketing) App that with one click shows you how many other Wings fans are in the vacinity.

No Paula Rose, not like Wings meet Tinder 🙂

Para Handy

Not sure it is a great use of resources considering that it is already a relatively easy place to find your way around but what would be good would be:

1. Live feeds/links with other independence minded sites
2. RSS Capability
3. A forum with “stickies” covering the main discussion themes so that we don’t have the same conversations and questions on many different threads.

Grant

I installed it on my android device, then removed it.
What you really need is a proper mobile view for this site.

galamcennalath

Can I point something out?

There have been 1500+ votes above in less than 3hours.

The fundraiser has had 2700 founders in ~18 days.

While all 1500 might have thrown something in the hat, I have my doubts.

Anyone who hasn’t contributed yet, and enjoys the service here, please go and support Stu, WoS and Apps!

link to indiegogo.com

Marc Schmidt

Brilliant, hated visiting the website on my phone as I would have to zoom in on every article to try and get the text sitting right

scav

One request, and one request only:

PLEASE FIX THE STYLESHEET or at least the order the styles are loaded.

Every time I load a page, I have to wait a few seconds, with black text unreadable over that grey background texture, before the white background comes in.

purplebadger

I’d suggest not spending money on this. While it’s nice to have an app, I use Feedly and gReader on Android to automatically download articles from the RSS feed and read offline that way. It even notifies me when a new article is posted. I’m sure similar solutions exist for iOS. No need for a dedicated app.

X_Sticks

Desimond says:

“No Paula Rose, not like Wings meet Tinder 🙂 ”

You should be so lucky…

manandboy

So exciting, Stu, I wish you and all the knowledgeable commenters every success with the new app.

I find my fingertip a very blunt tool for the up/down scroll button, and for text selection, but I’m sure it is only a matter of time before someone invents a thimble with a pointy pad attached to make selecting more accurate. Come to think of it, I could make one of those myself!

A refresh button is a must BTW.

Rosa Alba Macdonald

An eject button to eject the subject of the article into outerspace whereupon he or she will disintegrate upon reentry into the earth’s atmosphere.
An alternative might be to eject subject of the article from parliament or high office or CEO as appropriate.

Eckle Fechan

Nae, nae, and thrice nae.

It’s all about article content for me I’m afraid, not the format or the coolness of gizmos. Broadsheet, Berliner or Tabloid (humour me): take your pick, but you don’t need the overhead of supporting n number of formats to frame the same content.

Can you tell I’m not in favour of donated funds being used for redundant IT development? Can you tell I work in the industry?

Please don’t get distracted managing a separate App Dev stream, it’ll only create more ongoing concerns to think about in terms of extending functionality and improving/fixing performance, upgrades, etc., potentially creating an ongoing funding commitment.

I’d rather see the money spent more wisely on improving the current site functionality where usable benefit is simple, obvious and measurable (nested comment replies, no more really).

I’d also love to see further print campaigns (Red?) with continual outreach to capture the imagination of the wider, offline, audience. As you said yourself Stu, papers are ubiquitous and are likely to be picked up and read.

Would a Weekly Wings print edition be a future possiblility? Or am I dreaming the dream here budget-wise?

Perhaps you could conjure up some assistance from the likes of Ivan McKee & Co., sourcing advertising revenue from Business For Scotland affiliates and …?

Just thinking, thinking, but Ah’ll haud ma wheesht noo.

——————
Believers 45, Collaborators 55.
But the tide is turning and the dream shall never die.

Thomas Widmann

I’ve just installed this app, and it’s great, but I’m a bit wary of a future where all websites have their own app.

What I’d really like to see is a CyberNatApp that gives you all the updates from all the pro-indy websites (and The National) and perhaps also the main Facebook groups. Then newcomers wouldn’t need to discover all the websites in a piecemeal fashion, and everybody would discover new articles in real time.

Dinnatouch

I’ve never had a problem visiting WoS on my iPhone. I get emails whenever there’s a new article, and either a double tap or a touch of the reader view button brings the text up to a readable size. My phone even handles comments better than my PC, showing all comments without lag, and even remembering my WordPress login details. The only thing that makes the PC better is being able to read the mouse over comments on photos.

baldelectrician

The app would be good if you could export (via text or mail etc) to someone else
This would be handy for canvassing

Meindevon

I have no problem getting Wings on phone or iPad. All well and good so far.

I would like to be able to reply to people where the comment is, if you know what I mean.

Other folk refer to posts and answer questions and I waste a lot of time going up and down the comments to see what folk are replyng to.

(Of course I could just be being thick and you can do that now!)

Fred

Our brilliant Chancellor, informs us that an independent Scotland could never have afforded the generous input he is making to the North Sea coffers, completely ignoring the fact that an independent Scotland would have had an oil-fund along the lines of Norway. Giddy, who sounds a bit like Kenneth Williams to me, is also planning to spend big bucks celebrating the aniversary of England’s victory at Agincourt, with a sleekit dig at “Renegade Scots”. His knowledge of history is as sketchy as that of the oil industry. England won that battle but lost the Hundred Years War and the Renegade Scots were on the winning side. 🙂

Tattie-bogle

Will the app be available for windows phones?

Chic McGregor

Ideally, I would like to see a daily half hour ‘skype-type’ phone-in where readers can put questions or comments on the day’s articles (and OTs if deemed interesting enough) to Stuart ‘live'(15 sec abuse buffer). Stu and Caller windows available to view by others logged in.

Thistle

WE NEED THIS APP!!!

Please whoever developed Rev’s app we basically need exact same done, get in touch. Help pro-indy citizen livestream journalists.

Kevin: liveindepedence@gmail.com
http://www.independencelive.net

captmaxspacecat

I read wings on my ps3 🙂

Croompenstein

Installed the app it’s cool.

O/T I was on the tablet and there was an advert for Dundee voter registration app..

We could perhaps get a wee wings game I’ve got this great wee game called Angry Gran Run, basically a wee granny runs down the street dodging obstacles and leathering folk. It could be Angry Rev Run where Stu runs down the street leathering Labour’s lies.. 🙂

Stoker

As a laptop user and a technophobe i have nothing to offer in the way of new suggestions because i haven’t a scooby so i’m quite happy to leave the suggestions to the more knowledgeable amongst us.

One comment which did catch my eye further up the thread was a suggestion by almannysbunnet (@10.50am) where he suggests attempting to replicate the best on the market, and take it from there, with your own additions suggested by other members.

On a slightly related topic Rev.
When the fundraiser has run its course and you remove the ‘Soaring ever higher’ stickie at the top of the page, please consider replacing it with a permanent ‘stickie’ where members can go to seek advice and help from you and other more knowledgeable folk on any techno matters, a sort of ‘Techno Tips’ section.

It would be very beneficial for techno dummies such as myself and would help to keep these matters from invading other thread discussions.

Other than that, keep up the good work.

frogesque

My main concern with a multitude of apps, gadgets and gismos would be site security.

There must be a good few ‘out there’ that would like to see Wings brought down – especially since you pissed off the EBC and KatE. I realise you know your stuff but as with all things that get up the Establishment’s nose – be wary. Maybe a mirror site on a Cloud?

Otherwise, the 20 min delay thing – it seems to happen if you are well down the comments. If you are in the first few my posts appear on submit.

AKHibby

I use a Galaxy S5 Active and find Wings is too cluttered to comfortably read on it. That said I do on occasion force my way through posts when the other option is waiting for too long to read them, probably more than an hour or so :p

Craig

I am a technophob and I only use a desktop, I struggle with mobile phones

I refuse to be trendy 😛

CyberMidgie

I read Wings on a 10.1 inch tablet, and I’m quite happy with the way Android’s Chrome browser handles it, so I personally wouldn’t bother with a separate app.

That said, I do have some suggestions for making the app work well for those who do want it.

You could manage storage requirements by letting the user specify how much content to let the offline sync function keep. For example, default to the most recent 30 days’ worth and let the user change the period (or disable offline sync altogether) as needed. If they click on an older item, keep that for the same period – they’ll have to wait for it to load the first time, but it’ll be there immediately if they refer back to it later.

In addition, you could allow users to set a cap on total storage, so they could effectively choose to “keep the last 14 days, subject to a maximum of 100MB in storage”, for example. Older articles would be dropped first to stay within the cap.

When syncing, prioritise text so that all articles have their text downloaded to the device before any article even starts to download images. Also let the user disable offline sync for images so that those only load if the user clicks on them. This makes the most of low bandwidth and / or limited storage.

Allow the user to separately enable / disable offline syncing via WiFi or mobile data. This lets the user choose how to handle pay as you go access and automatically lets them choose any of the four possible combinations from “both disabled” (no syncing at all) through “one enabled but not the other” to “both enabled”.

Allow the user to change the default text size, text colour and background colour. This is very important for accessibility to visually impaired readers. Merely following the device defaults isn’t always enough, because some devices aren’t very good at making their defaults handle the compromise between displaying UI elements sensibly (often requiring smaller text) and making it comfortable to read for long periods (often requiring larger text).

Make sure the app respects the device orientation. I never cease to be surprised by the number of lazily-coded apps that not only insist on portrait or landscape mode, but insist on only allowing that mode one way up. It doesn’t give a very good impression when someone is holding their tablet and an app renders upside down or sideways, forcing them to rotate the tablet and irritating them because their hardware buttons are now in a different place to the one they’re used to. Visually impaired users and left-handers are especially unhappy when this happens.

Well, that got a bit longer than I thought it would! I hope some part of it proves useful.

Oneironaut

@Stoker
“On a slightly related topic Rev.
When the fundraiser has run its course and you remove the ‘Soaring ever higher’ stickie at the top of the page, please consider replacing it with a permanent ‘stickie’ where members can go to seek advice and help from you and other more knowledgeable folk on any techno matters, a sort of ‘Techno Tips’ section. “

Taking on any volunteers for such a scheme? 🙂

I could do with something to make me feel useful for once!

JN

I read Wings via your full-text RSS feed.

Oh, wait.

Cactus

Evening all,

I’ve often wondered (like audio books) you could also do audio articles? Either yourself dude or I nominate the lovely Quinie Frae Angus for voice-over 🙂

T-minus 50 days to save Scotlands voice X

Paula Rose

Can we have a watch the cyber-rats thingie?

Bruce Edelsten

Stu,
My groat’s worth: Responsive Web Design should provide an optimal viewing experience for the wide variety of devices in use – and the majority (not necessarily for WOS though) are now mobile devices.
Keep up the good work.

Bugger (the Panda)

@
CyberMidgie says:

Jeez.

What does that men to a Panda with a Chinese fake ubuntu tablet?

Gone Tonto

@ Paula Rose says:
18 March, 2015 at 7:17 pm

Can we have a watch the cyber-rats thingie?

I left you a comment, no doubt published 2 days later a few threads back,

I just wanted a strapline.

CyberMidgie

@ Bugger (the Panda)

Just ignore it, they’re ideas for anyone who might be asked to write a Wings app. Lots of technical detail most people would never need to think about. I should really have made that clear up front.

Donald Urquhart

“So we’d like to know what you’d want to see in it”…..

Around 9th or 10th of May a factual article about the lies in Jim Murphy’s resignation speech would be nice.

Paula Rose

BtP – oh how you make me giggle, where honey?

Effijy

I tried to download the new app but google tell me that I’m managed by Virgin Media and they will transfer me there.
Once at Virgin they refuse to have anything to do with a Google download? Help!

Grendel

Hurrah! More power to you!

CyberNiall

I can’t believe nobody has suggested a Wings dating app yet. It’s our duty to create the Yes voters of tomorrow!

The app will determine matches based on personal information, such as age, location and how many Yes badges you own.

Patrician

My home server runs calibre, which overnight downloads the website, formats it and and sends it to my ereader as an ebook ready for reading on the train.

Apart from that a version formatted for mobile would be handy, but the notifications are the best thing about this.

George S Gordon

Fitting only the main (left hand) column to the mobile device would be great, especially for phones.

Swipe to get the stuff on the right.

Greg

I’d quite like it to work on my Kindle Stu …unlike this one 🙁

Wee Jimmy

The Dancing Murphy!! It’s what the internet was for after all.

Gallowglass

Excellent news, greatly looking forward to the iOS version.
If you could include a tab for your twitter feed etc

Frann Leach

Two things I think would be useful:

1/ a share button – vital
2/ the list of articles on the right needs more space between them, as it’s difficult to select the one you want, particularly when the title is between two longer titles.

I’m currently working on making a site mobile friendly (not a quick fix), and space between links is one of the things Google includes in its check. As you probably know, from 20 April, non-mobile-friendly sites will be penalised in the SERPs.

Clydebuilt

Oh F&@? …….K with an E …..is on air.

akhibby

True, but you have to allow for the fact I’m 1/2 blind lol


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