Alt-Text a la Wondermark

[volfied]

Dave Malki over at Wondermark has implemented a nice system for displaying alt-text in mobile browsers. Any chance you could swipe his code for XKCD? Clearly the alt-text is important to the comics and not being to read them on mobile devices is a real bummer. Keep up the good work. Thanks.

[SecondTalon]

(before I check Wondermark on my mobile device) m.xkcd.com doesn't work on your mobile device?

(after checking it on my mobile devices) Ah, I see. You want the function of m.xkcd.com on the main page. I do not believe that is desired by the administration at this time.


m.domain or mobile.domain are recognized as being standards for mobile versions of a page, which is why it isn't on the main page. The site doesn't auto-redirect your mobile device because auto-redirection of mobile devices is stupid.

[AvatarIII]

Dave Malki over at Wondermark has implemented a nice system for displaying alt-text in mobile browsers. Any chance you could swipe his code for XKCD? Clearly the alt-text is important to the comics and not being to read them on mobile devices is a real bummer. Keep up the good work. Thanks.

if you have an android phone there are several apps that auto-download XKCD and display alt text.

[volfied]

Goodness! It's hard to believe I've been reading XKCD this long and never known about the mobile site. As you say, no redirect. And I do agree that autoredirect for mobile devices is undesirable, as, perhaps, are cookies to store such a preference. Maybe a link to the mobile page beneath the buttons? I read my webcomics in an RSS reader on my iPhone and I can't open arbitrary URLs in its integrated browser, so the link would be useful. Something to think about, anyway. I guess the important part is just knowing it's there. Thanks.

[SecondTalon]

Maybe a link to the mobile page beneath the buttons?

I do not know why this is not already in place.

[The Mighty Thesaurus]

You could put it where the forum link used to be

[Ortus]

You could put it where the forum link used to be

I approve of this message.

[10nitro]

m.domain or mobile.domain are recognized as being standards for mobile versions of a page, which is why it isn't on the main page. The site doesn't auto-redirect your mobile device because auto-redirection of mobile devices is stupid.

Oh, yes, auto-redirection is stupid. But so is having a separate subdomain for mobile. HTML is represents content, not presentation, that's what CSS is fore. See, CSS has a nifty feature where you can target different media types. How the Wondermark site does it is it has a generic stylesheed for the mobile site (and print, for that matter), a la media="all", then there's another stylesheet that makes the website pretty for non-mobile users (media="screen"). You are looking at the same markup whether on a mobile device or PC.

An even better example of this is the World Wide Web Consortium's site (it makes sense that they'd do a good job). Not only do they target media="mobile" and media="screen" separately, they handle mobile devices that render as media="screen" by also handling low-res screens with media="screen and (min-width: 481px)". (which is also great for users that want to look at it from a small window; drag your window small enough and it will switch to the mobile site). There's even some JS to let you toggle the stylesheets between the desktop, mobile and print modes.

tl;dr: Auto-redirects are stupid, but separate urls are too.

[Stereo]

The separate address frequently allows the site to serve not just the same content in a different packaging, but a subset or simplification of the content, reducing the strain on possibly more expensive mobile data plans. If I load up http://cnn.com, it takes about 700KB and some redirects for ad content. http://m.cnn.com in contrast is 30KB, but only includes headlines and some small banner ads.

[10nitro]

The separate address frequently allows the site to serve not just the same content in a different packaging, but a subset or simplification of the content, reducing the strain on possibly more expensive mobile data plans. If I load up http://cnn.com, it takes about 700KB and some redirects for ad content. http://m.cnn.com in contrast is 30KB, but only includes headlines and some small banner ads.

The real problem there is that the CNN site is bloated. There is no reason why it should take 15 seconds for the main page to load on a decent broadband connection (I measured 59 requests, 747.6 KB, 15.16s). Even if I did agree that a separate address for this reason were useful, it doesn't apply to xkcd because the site is so light anyway. There is a decent size difference between xkcd.com and m.xkcd.com, 100KB vs 20KB. However, most of the difference seems to be Javascript for the Google search box auto-suggest, which a poor mobile browser would ignore anyway.

[mtavs]

I realize this thread has been dead for a while, but I was looking for a way to display the alt-text for Wondermark on Android and this is the only thing I could find through Google. How do you see it??

Edit: I'm dumb. I figured it out...in case anyone else wanders here looking for the same answer, on Wondermark, there is a little black speech bubble to tap, below and to the right of the comic, which brings up the alt-text.