Transport & Rides Lists

[John Carter]

I don't normally view the forum on a smartphone. I've just done it, however, and, boy, what a trek it is down to the bottom of the forum index! The same applies on a PC, of course, but to a lesser degree. That leads me to two suggestions:

 

1. Is it necessary for the Transport List and the Rides List to be open so that you see all the sub-topics within them as you scroll down the index? Instead, you could just click on Transport List and Rides List if you wanted to find out what the sub-topics are.
2. Would it be better if those two topics were further down the index? Although they're an important part of ATOTF, they're essentially reference topics rather than news.

Edited January 29, 2016 by John Carter

[Bill Edwards]

Trek? A quick flick of the finger on my Android

 

I use the forum on my phone all the time and don't have a problem with navigation at all. I don't see a problem, but if this is a big deal for a lot of members I'll see what can be done.

 

Regards

 

Bill

[John Carter]

This morning I viewed the forum on a Hudl tablet. I don't often do that and it's for the same reason that I don't often view on a smartphone - I can touch-type, so I find a lot of the internet frustrating if I can't use a proper keyboard.

Anyway, as is natural with a tablet, I held it in landscape format and Eureka! I spotted why I had difficulty yesterday. I had held the smartphone, again as is natural, in portrait format. In landscape format, on the other hand, it's easier to view the forum index, in particular the Rides List, because everything flows across the screen rather than down it.

I then realised why I have same problem with a PC, but to a lesser degree. When I last needed to replace my computer monitor, everything had gone widescreen format, so that's what I bought. I hated it immediately. The new monitor occupied the same amount of deskspace, yet my photos, when displayed on it, were smaller. Eventually I managed to buy a conventional format monitor. It's much better for my main interest, photography, although it doesn't display our forum index as well as it might.

To be honest, I think widescreen is a backwards step, even in the cinema. It seems better to me to keep the viewers' eyes focussed on a narrower area. I expect, however, that a widescreen monitor is wonderful if you spend your time working on spreadsheets.

Membership of my group "Proud to be a luddite" is free.

[harry m]

Our natural way of holding a smart phone is one handed in the portrait position. I also have fallen for that trap with something recently whereby when I turned the phone to the

landscape position I found a scroll bar that I never knew existed.

To be honest , I use a 2 x wide screen PC at work and its SO much easier with spreadsheets. So much so, I now use a 2 x monitor PC at home as well.

Your correct with wide screen doesn't suit every aspect of PC work though, but in the same breath , look how much easier you found the site on a wide screen smart phone.

[John Carter]

 

Interesting that I didn't do that in the first place, Harry, because I wouldn't dream of using a smartphone in portrait format to take a photo. I trained myself to take most photos in landscape format when I was shooting 35mm slides to project on a screen. The screen were usually square format, possibly landscape, but never portrait. To fit a portrait format slide on the screen, you had to reduce the projected width of the landscape slides. The same applies on here. If you've got your screen set so that landscape photos fill the screen, you won't be able to see the whole of a portrait photo.

There's an interesting page here about the aspect ratios of various types of image:

http://www.equasys.de/aspectratio.html

My monitor is the first in the chart i.e. 5:4 ratio., but the chart isn't to scale. My monitor has a 19" screen. In widescreen I'd need a 24" monitor to view my photos at the same size. That would be another 5.5" (142mm) of width on the desk and about £60.

We've only recently bought a widescreen panel TV. I hate to see films with squashed or stretched images, so I go to a lot of trouble to adjust the panel to the right format. I'm fussy about this kind of thing. When everyone had cathrode ray TVs, I had to resist the temptation to adjust the colour controls of sets which were blasting out fluorescent colours in friends' houses.

Edited January 31, 2016 by John Carter

[harry m]

The beauty of modern smart TV screens is the ability to change quickly between different aspect ratio, Unfortunately , its not as simple or quick with a PC , although only a few clicks will do it.

 Even with Two Pc screens I cant have Two different aspect ratios at the same time ( not with this set up anyway).

i think its a natural thing with a smart phone to use Landscape for pictures , especially as you usually have to push a screen button whilst holding the phone.