Design » Responsive & Mobile menu design Not Visible in - Sitefinity - General Discussions

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Posted by Community Admin on 12-Mar-2012 00:00

I have upgraded my 4.4 project to 5.0 and I don't see the new "Design > Responsive & Mobile" menu. Is this just me? Do I need to turn on a feature in Admin > Settings first?

Posted by Community Admin on 12-Mar-2012 00:00

Dear Dan

What version are you using. It's an add-on to the SE as far as I know.

Markus

Posted by Community Admin on 12-Mar-2012 00:00

Markus:

...Not in Standard Edition? Bummer...Ok. The other 5.0 SE upgrade features are fine, but that was the cool one. I just checked the price sheet, and you are correct.

Dan

Posted by Community Admin on 12-Mar-2012 00:00

Hey Dan,
Yes it is a bummer, but all you're missing is the UI to preview, and build your media query rules....which again, is still cool.

HOWEVER, you can build a responsive SF design still. We've been using that method here pre 5.0...and it's been working great actually.

Steve

Posted by Community Admin on 12-Mar-2012 00:00

@Steve: So does it generate different HTML for different devices or does it simply help create media-queries? I thought there was a chance that the mobile plugin could serve out a slimmed down HTML template for some devices. (maybe that was just wishful thinking. ;-)

I'll figure out the media-queries. I might even work on some custom programming to slim down my template for non-desktop browsers. It would have been nice to play with a new toy though. (my client is not ready to pick up the tab for the plugin - not doing enough mobile...yet)

Thanks for the follow up!

BTW - I should have looked at your link first. It answers some questions. I thought that you had linked to Gabe's post on a similar topic, which is quite helpful as well.

Posted by Community Admin on 12-Mar-2012 00:00

The responsive module seems to do a couple things

1) Provides the media query stylesheet to transform the SF layouts
2) Gives the ability to "preview", and I think this is just a "skin" around an iframe, so not real browser preview...but sized properly
3) In the UI you can set specific CSS stylesheets to come down for that device ruleset OR have it redirect to a mobile version of the site...this is the cool part really.

So REALLY....you could partially get away with it without the UI bells and whistles

Posted by Community Admin on 12-Mar-2012 00:00

You are right, the redirect to a mobile version of the site is the cool part. That allows you to serve up a trimmed version of the page, that loads fewer resources. The media-queries are nice for page formatting, but the mobile template is really what allows you to speed up page loads - assuming the mobile template is trimmed down to bare minimums.

You are also right that with some effort, I can accomplish a lot with Standard Edition and a good masterpage.

Dan

Posted by Community Admin on 13-Mar-2012 00:00

Not quite related, but after complaining on this thread, I would like to say that the "Module Import/Export" in 5.0 SE is REALLY NICE! That feature is well worth the 5.0 upgrade!

Posted by Community Admin on 02-May-2012 00:00

Hi,

I've just upgraded from 4.4 to 5.0 and the Design > Responsive & Mobile menu is not there either and I have Professional Edition....

Another issue:
The Administration > Files menu in 4.4 should become Administration > File structure menu in 5.0 which doesn't either...

Thanks for your help...

John

Posted by Community Admin on 03-May-2012 00:00

Interesting reading other people's thoughts on this.

I'm still struggling to understand how a 'traditional' website (for want of a better description) can be auto-magically transformed into a mobile-friendly website, just via media query stylesheet adjustments.

When I tested my SF 5.0 website (which works well for traditional devices) using the W3C mobile checker http://www.w3.org/Mobile/ I scored 4 total show-stoppers, 4 severe errors, 4 low-level errors, and a whole bunch of warnings - raising some issues I hadn't even considered.

This suggests to me that I need to totally re-think the mobile solution.

Posted by Community Admin on 05-May-2012 00:00

Hey MB,

There's no such thing as 'auto-magically' unfortunately, but responsive webdesign can help make a desktop targeted website behave more mobile friendly. Nothing beats a truly mobile created/targeted website but often budget (and/or time) doesn't allow this.

Initially responsive webdesign will cost you extra time, but after 2-3 projects things start to become 2nd nature and when you reach that stage, you'll be ready to offer a better user experience across devices for the same amount of time spent developing.

A 4 column design for a blog or showcase may look good on a desktop, but on a mobile device it might be better to 'transform' it into 4 rows of 1 columns or 2 rows of 2 columns... or perhaps don't show (for instance) that youtube video at all. That's where Sitefinity's mobile features truly come in handy.

And if Sitefinity's column reflow and its rule-sets are to limited for your design, you can still add your own styling/design rules and preview them on the range of mobile devices.

To use a car analogy; 10years ago we had sport cars and trucks - these days we have SUV. They're not as fast as a sports car and can't transport as much as a truck but they're the overlap of the two and offer a cross experience for the price of one.

---

I just ran a test on http://www.w3org/Mobile/ for a new responsive site I'm working on and I'm scoring 91% and hitting 4 low level errors.

Two are related to it not understanding html5 doctype/utf-8 declaration. One is the page exceeding a '13Kb' limit and the last is not proper declaration of width/height attribute with images. And there's a warning regarding the use of scripting.

So even a 'perfectionist' like me ends up with errors, don't be thrown off by them - let them help you rethink your solutions IF you want to.

Sports cars and trucks are still the best for both worlds, but if you don't have the time or budget and want to offer a more cross device (phone/tablet/desktop/tv) experience Sitefinity Mobile's features are the smoothest way to start.

3 great starting points:
Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte
Hardboiled by Andy Clarke
Building Hybrid Mobile Applications by Pluralsight

Posted by Community Admin on 14-May-2012 00:00

I agree with Jochem, there is no magic to it, so i am not sure why the SF team decided that it woudnt be appropriate for all versions as you can build it into your normal workflow.....

They foundations are the flexible grid, then you have tools like flexible images (although with a CMS in general the implementation woudnt be perfect) and then you glue it all togetehr with media queries, when it comes together it is pretty cool, we have built a few sites using the techniques.

One thing i will say is Responsive is a buzz and it is a very good tool to have, but it is not the silver bullet clients want to be, as if the client is adamant that they want the whole desktop content on the mobile version then the experience deminshes if the site is text/content heavy. The focus should be on mobile first (again a buzz) where you strip the content back and have the core, that way you know that the message is succint and to the point, unfortunantly many clients do not see it that way.

Also, Mobile first is a good strategy to have when you can control the content to a degree, for instance we created a banner rotator that outputs full size images for the desktop, but mobile optimized ones for mobile devices, as even with responsive design you need to be context aware.

Rob

Posted by Community Admin on 28-Nov-2012 00:00

How do you actually access/purchase the add-on? Can't seem to find it anywhere...

Posted by Community Admin on 28-Nov-2012 00:00

Ha! I've only just recently looked into this and had the same problem.

www.sitefinity.com/purchase

The +$999 is a hyperlink that places it into your shopping cart.

However, I'm yet to find a definitive description of what I get for my money, and how it works, so I keep putting off the purchase.

Posted by Community Admin on 29-Nov-2012 00:00

My client and I had our account manager give us a demo of the mobile / responsive design module and it does seem very convincing. If you are unsure of the purchase, you should your rep give you a personalized demo too. We haven't purchased yet but we are much closer to pulling the trigger on it.

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