Hi folks,
Gibbon works just fine with a wider display.
However, with smaller displays e.g. in smart phones and smaller tablets, Gibbon forces the user to do a lot of horizontal scrolling, which is inconvenient.
Any workaround or ideas?
Kind regards,
Roman
Roman,
Thanks for commenting, and welcome to the community. We were hoping to have a responsive theme as part of v11, but the developer could not deliver, and has since dropped off the radar. This is a shame, as you are right, it is inconvenient on a mobile device. Another developer has mentioned an interest in this area, and she does have experience, so it might yet happen. Otherwise, short of creating your own theme, there is not much that can be done.
Cheers,
Ross
Hi Ross,
I’m wondering why this is of low priority.
I see disadvantages e.g. for teachers in class, who want to access their sometimes rather detailed lesson notes. Currently they are basically forced to take their laptop to class, put it on a table and sit in front of it, right?
Would a lightweight tablet not be far more convenient allowing the teacher to be free in his movements?
Kind regards,
Roman
Roman,
It is not that it is a low priority, it is more that we do not have the resources to achieve it, and it is not a small job. In terms of my own coding time, my school is laptop based, and so it is not something I have the time to build. As I said, hopefully another developer will work on it at some time. It would be great to have it more more usable from phones and tablets.
Thanks,
Ross
Hi Ross,
Thanks a lot for these clarifications. I understand better now.
Kind regards,
Roman
Hi Ross,
I had a closer look at the gibbon code this morning to find out about how to go about the development of a responsive theme.
The problem is that many php files contain hard coded info related to design, making the attempt to split content and design rather difficult. Before we can tackle the development of a responsive theme, we need to remove all hard coded data from gibbon’s code. This is a lot of work and is best done by a core developer since so many files must be changed.
Are my findings correct? What is your opinion on this?
Kind regards,
Roman
Roman,
You are, in part, correct, there is quite a bit of style code mixed in with the HTML. However, the majority of the styling is done in the theme. What is not was done out of necessity, due to time and man power restrictions: basically, things got built the way they did, or they did not get built!
In terms of going forward, all that code does need to come out and be moved into the theme. In terms of who does it, it does not need to be a current core developer, as all changes will come through me before making their way into the core, so I can vett everything. Therefor it can be anyone with a functional understand of HTML and CSS.
As is always the case, we are on a limited time budget, with no financial budget, so we can’t always do everything the “best” way. Historically our concern has been to get new features built, whilst keeping the system stable and secure.
Cheers,
Ross
Hi Ross,
I’m slowly running out of time. My deadline to
come up with a prototype is in early july. To make gibbon responsive is part of the requirements that I have to tackle.
Let me have your
thoughts on it. I don’t want go into the wrong direction, since all code should
ultimately become part of core gibbon.
Kind regards,
Roman
Roman,
There is no way we can make Gibbon responsive before July, without other volunteers joining our team, or someone putting some money up to pay for this work to be undertaken. I am sorry that this impacts your deadline, but there is not currently much that we can do.
Thanks,
Ross
Hi Ross,
I’m still optimistic and hope I’ll be able to meet the deadline. I don’t need to come up with a perfect solution but rather a prototype.
I’m a software developer myself and I think I may be able to do something about it. However, your thoughts and input in this regard would be helpful.
I was also thinking of having a closer look at how responsiveness is achieved in moodle, which is doing a rather great job.
I’m also willing to put up some money. However, I don’t know anybody being able to undertake this work meeting your standards. It would be a shame to invest money and later find out that you can’t include the work into core gibbon for some reason. Can you recommend somebody?
Kind regards,
Roman
Roman,
I am appreciative that you are willing to put up some money in order to get this work done, and great to hear that not all is lost. I have worked very closely with Andy Statham at Rapid36, and believe he would be up to the job. I also have another couple coders in mind. Let me email them, and ask them to get in touch with you.
Thanks,
Ross
Hi Ross,
I have exchanged ideas with Andy Statham and his advices are really helpful. Our financial strength is rather limited and we can’t meet Andy’s financial expectations. However, Andy is rather perfect for giving advice and support due to his experience with Gibbon.
Kind regards,
Roman
Hi again,
I did a little research on making Gibbon responsive. There are a few rather interesting projects out there which could help making Gibbon responsive. Gibbon is far from being alone facing the challenge not being responsive. One possible way may be to bootstrap it. More information can be found here: http://getbootstrap.com/. What do you think of this?
Kind regards,
Roman
Roman,
From what I have heard, Bootstrap is a good way to go about it, but I don’t have any personal experience with it. Are you in a position to try and install it (perhaps in /lib), and see how you might be able to get it to work?
In a discussion amoungst some developers (we use a Slack channel: let me know if you want to join), it seemed like consensus that whilst responsive is good, we don’t want to sacrifice desktop usability.
Thanks for your ongoing contributions!
Ross
Hi Ross,
Desktop usability is very important. I guess it’s preferred by most users for content editing. I don’t know how much it will be affected. Let me have a closer look and do a few tests.
I’ll get back to you as soon as I know more.
Kind regards,
Roman
Amazing, thanks!
My experience with Boostrap is good and these days it makes more sense for mobile and desktop to have a responsive interface.
I would love to see a fund put together for this aspect of the project. My opinion is this is one of the main lacking features from what I have seen so far.
Is there any sort of funding mechanism that you guys use for development so that numerous people can contribute towards a certain feature and then a developer can just pick it up and work on it?
Hello jemmyn, we have discussed Bootstrap as one way to move towards responsive design, but rather than relying on a single framework, we are moving towards an inhouse solution. The first stage of this is moving the codebase towards object oriented, which is well underway in v15. Our hope is to have some responsive elements in place in v16 or v17 (see https://docs.gibbonedu.org/developers/getting-started/gibbon-road-map/ for some upcoming dates).
In terms of funds, I am currently working to try and establish a legal entity around Gibbon so that we can undertake such fund raising. For now, this is not something we could centrally coordinate, but I guess you could run a Kickstarter project to look at something like this.
Thanks for your input!
Ross