TubeNet App?

[txba]

Just an idea!

I'm sure someone here has the skills to make a TubeNet app happen!

[Donn]

Already done, I think. I haven't tried any of this stuff and have no intention to, but there appear to be several apps for phpBB, which is the forum software we're running here. Search for phpBB, and see if you see anything you like.

From my point of view, they don't really serve any spectacularly useful function, that couldn't be done just about as well by the forum software - in principle. The practical problem with the principle is that you may have to upgrade the forum software to get the newer "mobile" features, and that could be an enormous headache.

[Donn]

The owner of the forum is very hesitant about doing any upgrades.

That implies that he considers the possibility, which I sort of doubt. Aside from mobile features, I don't know that there's a whole lot to be gained anyway. The stupid "target=_blank" thing would go away, but it probably could be fixed without an upgrade. There's some truncation in old threads accessed via web search platforms, but that likely wouldn't be fixed.

As someone who has those skills

OK, I'm curious, how would it work? Never noticed any separate data retrieval protocol, or a reduced "WAP" or anything like that, so it appears to me the app would have to parse out the content from the full HTML/CSS rendition, including all the buttons and forms and whatnot. So while the implementation I briefly looked at seemed to be prepared to work with any phpBB bulletin board, it seems like they'd either have to pass everything through - so it would be hardly different from a web browser - or they'd be terribly sensitive to any local variations (customization) between one bulletin board and the next.