Shapeshifter 3

Presscreate,

Please excuse me for not getting back to you earlier. I’ve had some personal & work issues I had to attend to.

In regards to the Genesis/Eleven40 child theme choice; I think it is good one with a slight caveat: Your Content AND the Plugins you use matter. The founder of Genesis is way ahead of some other WordPress Framework developers because he has already stated that over time ALL of their current Child Themes will be converted to Mobile Responsive. The founders of Theme Hybrid and Suffusion have made recent comments that they don’t believe that Mobile Responsive Design is necessary and see it as a Trend that may or may not come to Fruition. So currently your choice is a good one and safe.

Back to your Content. If you look at the layout tool that Genesis recommends for that the Eleven40 theme MattKersley.com, you will notice that the vertical length of your site’s content can get quite long. I don’t know what, or how much Content your new website will have, but if it is too long, the viewer(s) might just blow past it. This has nothing to do with the Theme, but how much content you choose to display on a mobile device.

I was in a Best Buy store yesterday and asked a couple in their mid-twenties to review my website. What they DIDN’T LIKE was my Tag Cloud that displays near the bottom of smartphone screens. Both the man and his girlfriend stated that the cloud looked too much like a paragraph they didn’t want to take the time to read….and blew past it. So it wasn’t the Theme (Twenty Eleven) they didn’t like. It was the way that part of my Content was designed (they had no idea what Tags were, and didn’t care).

Lastly, before you purchase that Genesis theme, try to find out what eCommerce plugins it will support. I didn’t research it for you..Sorry.

Presscreate,

Before I tell you what I’ve done, understand that WordPress Core, Framework, and Theme Developers have no Standard Definition (as of yet) for what Responsive Web Design should or should not be. That’s because users have different goals and developers haven’t figure out what the majority of users want. Current plugins offer different features, and there doesn’t appear to be an agreed-upon Standard Collection of Plugins integrated into the WordPress Core. Most Core Developers seem to think that Mobile Responsive Design is a Theme issue, and NOT a Core solution. That said, here’s what I’ve done:

1.) I moved my website from a 3-column to 2-column theme.
(I did that to make it easier for mobile devices to vertically
stack only 5-6 items on Smart Phones).

2.) I got rid of All of my Header Images in order to reduce the
total vertical length (from Top to Bottom) of my site on Smart
Phones.

3.) I converted all of my Post Categories to Tags that show up in a
lower section of Smart Phones.

4.) I installed plugins that Scale Images, Text & Videos to the
screen sizes of Smart Phones.

5.) I disabled and deleted the WPtouch Plugin from my site, because
I wanted my website to be displayed on Smart Phones as close as
to a Desktop display as possible INSTEAD OF a mobile theme. That
solution may, or may not fit your needs.

6.) I disabled and deleted the WP Resolutions plugin since I came to
decision that I din’t need it (it is a WordPress version of the
“Adaptive Images” combo of code. It seems to be difficult to
use, but a Great Idea).

7.) I used a Mobile Responsive Layout Tester
Screenfly
to constant review my progress.

8.) Here’s a link to a Post I wrote back on January 29th, 2012
Mobile Emulator or Layout Testing Tool

9.) Of those Plugins, I’m only using numbers: 1,2,3, and 5. You
can check how my site looks on a Mobile Device by Copy and
Pasting Toolbox-4-Websites.com into Screenfly.

10.) My Top Navigational Menu has quite a few links to useful code
you may want to try.

Hope this helps. In the future, I would like to go back to a 3-column layout that scales itself properly to a Smart Phone. I haven’t taken enough time to complete that yet.

peredur,

Thank you for your quick reply. It is appreciated. Please review this link to my site: Toolbox-4-Websites/ .

My problem is this:

1.) I have numerous static pages in my primary navigational menu that use either 2-3 columns of outbound links (by category).

2.) I need to fit them on Tablets, and Smart Phones.

3.) If I get rid of the left margin for the bullets themselves, at least the 2-column pages will show up properly. I’m using this online layout tool to test my static pages: Screenfly .

4.) Most things that I have read on Google Search and some of WordPress Codex articles seem to indicate that if I’m not careful, I will affect my website outside the area of my static pages. I’m trying to leave most of Twenty-Eleven’s blogs & comments intact.

5.) When I read the forums on WP Easy Column (plugin), the developer continually advises CSS as the way to get what I want. But, there is no clear indication as to how to do this.

Rev. Voodoo,

Thank you for that link. I have most of those frameworks and themes already listed on my own site. I’ll read it again, and see if I missed anything.

BTW, you have a WICKED personal website. I chuckled, when I first found it. Unique things are nice.

esmi,

Great, do you have any idea which Framework designer is the most up-to-date with Responsive Design?

esmi,

Thank you for your response. How about Frameworks? Are they too close to the core, or would they also be good candidates for this?

robflate,

If you have the time, can you post here how you got the Adaptive Images script to work on your site? You have indicated that it was difficult to set up. What did you have to do; are there any other WP Plugins involved; and was it a WP Code issue, or Hosting Server? I would like to see your website. Can you post a link to it?

robflate,

I don’t know if this helps or not, and I aplogize if it doesn’t. I gave up on using a 3-column theme because it always looked compressed and smashed-up on mobile devices smaller than a tablet. I went from the PressWork Framework (child theme), to Coraline, and then back to the Twenty Eleven default……..I’m happy with it now.

I think the WP Resolutions Plugin will eventually work, but the difficulties might have something to do with the caching and compatibility with other plugins (particularly WPtouch)….not sure.

I uninstalled the WP Responsive Plugin for now, and instead installed the following:

1.) EnhanceJS.

2.) FitVids.

3.) WP Fluid Images.

4.) WPtouch.

And, I use the Get Shortlink button in the Post Editor when adding long outgoing link URLs in my text. There is a jQuery Plugin FitText.js for inflating and scaling Headline Text, but I can’t find a WordPress Plugin for it yet and haven’t used it.

These items seem to have given me what I was after and you can test my site Toolbox-4-Websites by pasting it’s URL into this mobile emulator: ScreenFly .

My efforts have NOT been from Bottom Up (Mobile First), but Top Down.
I think the WordPress Developers are going to have to get more involved to get the Apdaptive Images concept to work on WordPress. It also seems that it would require 3-4 sizes of each image to work. Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know.

Understood,

Thank you.

esmi,

I understand the differences in the two organizations. What I don’t understand, is the reasoning process on making a decision NOT TO FILTER Themes & Plugins by Responsive, Adaptive, or Mobile First design.

In other words, is there: an Act of God, Aggravation, Downside, Outside Developer Resentment, Political Reason, Repercussion, Technical Difficulty, or simply a Lack of Direction on deciding NOT TO FILTER ?

You would think that at least one (1) of the above “folks” has seen the “Responsive Layout” filter on WordPress.com and thought: “Hey, that’s a good idea. Why don’t we do that?”

But instead, he/she must have thought: “Hey, that’s a bad idea. We won’t do that”.

What I would like to know is: What’s bad about it ? What problems would it cause www.ads-software.com ?

digitalhecht,

There is an aspect to the Evolution of “Responsive Web Design” that has not been determined yet. Read Jeff Sebring’s last comment of www.ads-software.com’s Ideas Forum: https://www.ads-software.com/extend/ideas/topic/new-responsive-category-for-theme-and-plugin-directories . Some design ideas use MACRO (desktop) to Micro (smart phone). And other design ideas use MICRO (smart phone) to MACRO (desktop). Often mentioned in various blog posts about Responsive Web Design is The Boston Globe’s September 12th, 2011 redesign of their Website. They chose to use the MACRO to MICRO design idea…not the reverse. Here’s a link to their promotional video: https://bcove.me/09l56ndv .

I’m wondering which concept will find itself becoming the most popular among WordPress Core, and Theme Developers.

I was wondering the same thing. I’m using the Coraline Theme.

I’m late to this discussion, but extremely interested in it. I have a PressWork Framework Child Theme that I would like to get to display my 15 randomly displayed Header Images at least on iPads. I also uploaded the WP Resolutions plugin, but it doesn’t seem to work.

I’m wondering if the Adaptive Images cache is conflicting with other plugins such as WP Super Cache, WP Touch, and others.

I notice that digitalhecht is getting tired of stripped down mobile themes. I was thinking about paying for WP Touch Pro. Do you think that I would be wasting my money if trying to get Mobile Responsive, and should I try other, newer methods of adapting my website?

Another thought: there is a Boilerplate extension called “320 and UP” that starts from the bottom (Mobile), and works its way up to larger screens. I wonder if that would require 4-5 different sizes of each uploaded Header Image (for random display) for that to work. I think that means I would need 75 separate images (5 x 15) saved in my WordPress Gallery for the Boilerplate to draw from…..not sure yet.

Just some thoughts.

I’m late to this discussion, but extremely interested in it. I have a PressWork Framework Child Theme that I would like to get to display my 15 randomly displayed Header Images at least on iPads. I also uploaded the WP Resolutions plugin, but it doesn’t seem to work.

I’m wondering if the Adaptive Images cache is conflicting with other plugins such as WP Super Cache, WP Touch, and others.

I notice that digitalhecht is getting tired of stripped down mobile themes. I was thinking about paying for WP Touch Pro. Do you think that I would be wasting my money if trying to get Mobile Responsive, and should I try other, newer methods of adapting my website?

I’m trying to keep using PressWork, but it’s not working too well right now with WordPress 3.3.

You know this is going to sound crazy, but I prefer using the “Update Now” method instead of the manual upgrade. I don’t trust getting a correct match-up of files from the downloaded .zip file, and the installation on my Host’s server (Go-Daddy). Seems like I have extra files on each location. Then I have to search folder’s/files for stragglers and delete them. Kind of like using CCleaner or Disk Cleanup on a Windows machine. I guess I’m lazy. It’s not WordPress’s fault. I was under the impression that the current upgrading procedure only changed “new files”; not all of them. Oh well, I’ll wait it out.