This page is here to help you configure how the website is
displayed.
Screen layout
Change how the website is laid out to help you use it on a narrow
display by clicking on the 'Computer' for a multi-column display or
'Mobile' for a single-column display.
Current configuration:
(default means cookie is not set and page layout will be single column,
as for mobile).
Font size
This lets you increase or decrease the font size shown by a certain
amount. Smaller is useful if you want to see more on screen at once.
Larger might help if you find it all a bit small. Standard browser
zooming should still work as well.
Current font size:
(default means cookie is not set and font size will be medium).
Language
You can use Google Translate to translate
any page into your native language. The translator is at the bottom of
every page (click here to see it).
Discussion
There are many ways to create a 'responsive web design' which
automatically changes to suit mobiles and I looked at a number of these,
including Skeleton, Bootstrap and Foundation, but I didn't need many of
the features offered and they did not do everything I wanted. I also
looked at CMS systems such as Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal, but the
problem here is that the website is already established with quite good
search engine ratings and also contains many fixed links.
In the end I opted for a combination of PHP and JavaScript,
communicating via cookies. Each page is now assembled in large chunks by
the server-side PHP with local Javascript handling some of the dynamic
elements (such as setting cookies in response to user requests). The
core knowledge piece is pretty much unchanged, so there may some
squeezes of tables and the very occasional image. I mostly use text,
originally because I started out when everyone was using dial-up modems.
Now, this slimline approach has come into its own again with mobile
bandwidth constraints.
Yes, there are still ads, and they do eat bandwidth. But that's the
compromise as this is how I now live. I do, however, try to keep them
out of the way of the main text area.
If you've any problems with what you see, feel free to
contact me, though please be aware that it's
just me and I'm often up to my eyes in something or other.
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