NodeBB integration with Tapatalk
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@kud In short, we build NodeBB with mobile devices in mind -- nobody should have to use an app just to browse a forum.
I don't want to say anything inflammatory, so I mean this in the best way possible: NodeBB is designed to make Tapatalk (and other apps like it) obsolete.
Pushbullet notifications are free for both forum owners and forum users, so we're looking to make it available for everybody once NodeBB v0.5.0 ships
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Actually there is a reason for Tapatalk that has nothing to do with design.
Some people use Tapatalk as one place (app) to stay up to date on multiple forums.
It's like having an RSS feed vs. having to visit dozens of news sites a day just to check if anything new was posted.
Oh, and Tapatalk is free for forum owners. The $69 quoted above is for a branded design (and it says exactly so on that page).
I'm not employed by or affiliated with Taptalk, but a forum owner.
Currently running SMF. Would love to have a more modern design and social logins, both of which your software has, but many of my users rely on Tapatalk.
PS - love your much more reasonable browser requirements (IE8+ vs. IE10+ for Discourse).
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@Kostya-Vasilyev For those users, perhaps they can make an exception for your NodeBB forum considering its great mobile interface?
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I realize I'm reviving a somewhat old thread, but this is a consideration for me. I currently use vBulletin to host a community, and am considering NodeBB as a possible future replacement.
Many of the members of the community (myself included) use Tapatalk to access the forum. After seeing @luke's comment regarding NodeBB having a great mobile interface (thus making Tapatalk unnecessary) I decided to try it out in Chrome on my Galaxy Note 4. The experience was unpleasant.
As I tried to scroll through messages, the browser would sometimes go blank (solid white), then come back. As I was reading thread summaries, sometimes the metadata (age of the post, etc.) would disappear then reappear. I experienced those issues in the first couple minutes of testing. They were severe enough that I didn't want to continue to see if there were other more subtle issues.
Assuming the issues I saw (and any more subtle issues I didn't find) were all addressed, the fact remains that Tapatalk provides a single unified interface to a wide variety of forum software, and that is valuable to me. As proud as people may be of the usability and features of their particular forum software, there is value in providing a familiar user experience.
Tapatalk also provides a searchable registry of forums that allows users to discover new communities. Even if NodeBB has that, it would (I assume) be limited to other NodeBB communities. Tapatalk makes communities more discoverable.
I don't work for Tapatalk or have any affiliation with them except that I use the mobile app and run their vBulletin plugin. Tapatalk support is important to me as I consider switching to NodeBB.
I can appreciate if supporting Tapatalk doesn't make business sense for NodeBB at this point, but I believe it would be a mistake to dismiss the proposition.
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With the excellent pushbullet support there is really no need for Tapatalk. Works great.
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@Woody-Thrower the screen blanking is new. I'm seeing it happen on my phone as well, but I'm yet to find the cause.
The disappearing meta data I don't quite understand what you mean.
As for Tapatalk, I've heard numerous bad things about their business, including driving traffic away from your forum if you're an unpaid host. As for discovery of new forums, isn't that what Google is for?
I agree that Tapatalk can be a very quick way for a forum with no mobile integration to support mobile devices ASAP, but with NodeBB, we already support mobile devices, and any bugs can easily be dealt with.
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@Woody-Thrower said:
Many of the members of the community (myself included) use Tapatalk to access the forum. After seeing @luke's comment regarding NodeBB having a great mobile interface (thus making Tapatalk unnecessary) I decided to try it out in Chrome on my Galaxy Note 4. The experience was unpleasant.
As I tried to scroll through messages, the browser would sometimes go blank (solid white), then come back. As I was reading thread summaries, sometimes the metadata (age of the post, etc.) would disappear then reappear. I experienced those issues in the first couple minutes of testing. They were severe enough that I didn't want to continue to see if there were other more subtle issues.
Is worth mentioning that on iOS 8 both Safari and Chrome crash when browsing any forum that runs NodeBB. Also concerning Tapatalk, it requires a database. It might be doable if we get mysql integrated.
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@xaoseric I have almost no crashes in Safari from NodeBB since upgrading to iOS 8 on my iPad2, actually. Chrome still crashes once in a while, but it does that on every site (try running a JavaScript benchmark in iOS Chrome - it's really just a bad piece of software). I was using Chrome as my primary browser on the iPad, but I've gone back to Safari since iOS 8 and it's a much better experience, now, though it can still be slow and crash occasionally.
This is, of course, some pretty old hardware. My girlfriend's iPad3 runs NodeBB sites (even several tabs at a time) without a hitch, and browsing from her iPhone 4s seems workable (if not exactly pleasant due to the tiny size of the device). My Windows Phone 8 has some issues posting (mostly because IE10 mobile is garbage) but is functional for browsing. I have users on Android and other Apple hardware and never hear complaints.
If you're having problems, you might try using paged mode (it's in your user account options for the forum). It might be nice if NodeBB could switch between "endless scroll" mode and paged mode for specific devices.
Edited to add: I posted this from my iPad2 and do most of my browsing of this site on it.
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I've had nothing but problems with iOS8 on my iPad 3. Topics with lots of links make the page refresh with the "Safari had a problem and restarted this page".
If I type at my usual pace on the iPad, it crashes at random points and never recovers, so I have to close the app and reopen safari, fortunately the draft saves to a word or so before it crashes. Happens with other sites too though. Will probably buy myself the iPad Air 2 in a couple of months though.
Just wish I could see when the last post was on tablets and phones.
(Cough) 
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@a_5mith said:
I've had nothing but problems with iOS8 on my iPad 3. Topics with lots of links make the page refresh with the "Safari had a problem and restarted this page".
How many posts and links are we talking about? I can feel the wheels start grinding on my iPad2 when the post count gets around 50-60 and has several embedded images in it (animated GIFs are especially fun on my iPad2).
But then, of course, there's this, which I found waiting for me at my desktop today:
This happened on a NodeBB page I had left open (I had four or five tabs open and only this one exploded) but it's happened on several other pages (generally ones that utilize a lot of AJAX, and whatever you'd call AJAX with JSON instead of XML) and I've seen it triggered by Flash and Java (I don't have Flash or Java installed, but I do on some VMs or other people's machines).
I switched to Chrome because it was more reliable and faster than other browsers, but these things seem to happen with increasing frequency, recently. Their "suggestions"? Check for AV/firewall blockages (I have none), disable extensions (I only have Google extensions installed: Docs, Sheets and Slides), check for malware (I have none) or wipe out your user profile (really doubt that's the problem, Google, but thanks for the suggestion).
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@a_5mith this thread? https://community.nodebb.org/topic/3097/voting-part-1-candidates-for-best-plugin-october-2014
Has no problems for me on my iPad2. I have learned to keep apps shutdown pretty well (Apple stuff is notoriously bad when low on memory) but other than that, I don't think I do anything special.
I have a few problems when responding, sometimes (spellchecker seems to hang once in a while, particularly when hitting backspace, and it sometimes has problems resizing/moving the response window when the keyboard opens) but I think those are really Safari-issues.
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I would like to see this plugin made
I think peoplea see this app the wrong way it's not for one forum but to consolidate multiple forums in one place
Yes no reason to use it if you one forum you follow has a good mobile version
But if your part of 10 different forums, as I am all in different fields of IT. It's a god sent to log into one app and have notification and reply from all of the different forums.
This is just my point of view and I think it would be a nice addition
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(Apologies in advance as my first post here is about such a boring topic as Tapatalk. And the semi necro)
@tfraley touches the main problem; It's not that nodeBB doesn't work for your users or isn't better than TT - the users expect TT to work. They have used it for years as their goto app on mobile devices. Some might buy the claim that nodeBB works better natively, but quite a few are creatures of habit. Change is hard and some of us are looking to radically change the forum experience, which can be all the change users can handle at the time.
I'm looking to move from a boring but stable phpBB forum to something newer. In my search for a platform I stumbled upon nodeBB. I have to give you guys credit - this leaps and bounds ahead of all the boring PHP-based forums I have looked at. I'm still restricted by what users expect. I'm not sure I can sell missing TT support simply because it is an expected service right now.
In other words, the problem isn't technical, it's user expectance/experience. Users that don't agree that the latest and greatest is necessarily the best user experience.
Could be that.
