My blog for the longest time had a very simplistic mobile format which at times became quite buggy and would load the regular theme onto many mobile browsers without much reason. I think those problems are behind me starting today with the addition of plugin called WPtouch. I had to make a couple of minor tweaks but I think it was well worth it as more and more features of ABG are now accessible through mobile means.
I have attached screenshots in the gallery below and I’ll describe each one after the break. Let me know what you think of the new look – you like it? hate it? want to recommend some other change? Feel free to let me know.
Home Page: The home page definitely looks a whole lot better now as it is more space efficient. First the small menu bar that runs across the top allows me to place many links into the sub sections without it cluttering up a small screen. Also, the way the posts are displayed is very nice because not only does it show the usual stuff like post title and date but it also displays the categories, tags and even has an option to add the author name. I think I’ll add that once I start getting a couple of guest bloggers.
Menu: The menu is a huge addition to the mobile site. I did not have this feature before but now it allows readers to view archives of previous posts, select my blogroll to view other blogs, click and view my photos, visit the ABG shop to purchase any apparel or even send me an email straight from the blog.
Categories: Categories are a nice add on since not only do they show the disproportionate amount of my posts are devoted to sports but it also allows you to filter the posts you want to view Stevens related or a handful of geeky math posts.
Archives: This one pretty much goes hand in hand with categories that you can pick and choose whether you want to see my very first post or see a specific stretch of a month. The Archive page also shows tag clouds that display proportionate to their respective sizes the amount of time each tag has been associated with a blog post.
Search: Originally, I had a search box on the blog but removed it for a short stretch because I just didn’t know where to place it but shortly before finding this plugin, I had placed it back into the right sidebar. Now in the mobile format, it is a simple box that drops down from the menu bar instantly without having to load another page.
Blog Roll: A decent amount of my visitors still leave my blog through one of the blog roll links and rightly so. Some quality blogs are listed there and I’m glad to have them visible on the mobile site as well.