As some of you will no doubt be aware, a recent WordPress update has messed up how the comments section in particular is displayed on mobile devices.
This is something outwith our control. The Plugin which provides a lot of our back end goodness has decided that as most “modern” themes are natively responsive (i.e. they scale up and down depending on device used) they would remove this particular piece of code. The VC theme is neither modern nor responsive (it is volcanic after all), and this has caused an issue for us.
The perfect solution would be a redesign of the site to bring the look and feel up to 2020. But 2020 has not been a great year so far. So we may want to wait a bit with this! So instead, for now we prefer to do something that alleviates the wonky formatting for mobile device users and postpone a more complete until a later time.
For those who are unaware, the current theme forces threaded comments into smaller and smaller spaces, firstly dropping the number of words per line, then eventually dropping down to a single character per line, meaning you effectively need to read top to bottom. As you can imagine, this is not fun to do, especially for long messages.
This simple reply becomes and unwieldy column of characters
There is however hope! We will now reveal how to un-wonk the site and restore mobility.
Here is the secret. Clicking the menu button in the top right of the screen will reveal the option of “Desktop site”. Selecting this forces the mobile browser to display the page as it would be viewed from a desktop device.
The Magic Button!
The same comment viewed through “Desktop mode”
This allows the user to scroll and pinch-zoom as you would on any picture on a mobile phone, and works for most websites.
So, it’s not an ideal solution but it should work as a temporary fix for the time being.
Tomorrow we hope to continue the Laki series. Happy commenting!
Good to know. The solution is however for Android devices only. I’m on iOS, and neither in Safari or Firefox do I have the option to turn to the Desktop site. Or I’m looking over it. Any solution for the poor Apple-minded?
Hm. Does this work? https://www.howtogeek.com/435173/how-to-view-a-desktop-site-on-mobile-safari/
Yes, in Safari what you need is the AA symbol to the left of the address bar at the top. Tap that to drop down the menu, and hit “Request Desktop Website”.
In Firefox on iOS, the three-dots icon to the right of the address bar brings down the Page Actions menu, which includes “Request Desktop Site”.
I just tried both, and they improve the Volcano Cafe readability enormously.
Thanks for this!
I have never used safari or Firefox on mobile so wasn’t sure
I find modifying WordPress is more difficult than writing HTML code.
This isn’t about comment displays, but I wonder if Kilauea is ebbing.
1. the lake
2. the gps inflation has stopped
3. Pahala is acting like there isn’t a release path
4. Loihi is getting active
usgs
The JOKA GPS down in the LERZ/MERZ inflated about 4 cm throughout April which combined with the current very low supply may have prevented the summit from inflating. JOKA stopped moving 3 days ago so some summit inflation may resume now but things will probably be overall quietuntil the deep batch of magma arrives. The Pahala swarm is just one part of the conduit that seems to be particularly seismically active so it might give the impression that the magma batch is still but the leading edge of the hotspot surge has probably moved beyond Pahala into an aseismic area, I think.
I am surprised it is taking so much time, I used to think pressure changes would travel within days or weeks from the Pahala area to the summit but it has already been about 1.5 years since the deep offshore tremors started increasing, I guess magma probably behaves very different at those depths than at the shallow plumbing of Kilauea where pressure changes can travel 40 km within minutes.
And after this message from our sponsor, we continue with the Laki series
https://www.volcanocafe.org/laki-deconstructed-iii-grimsvotn-and-beyond/