FTLOP now on mobile phones

[Andy Velebil]

I figured someone would have mentioned it by now, but in the current newsletter there is information about accessing FTLOP Forum using "Tapatalk." I've been using it for a few weeks now and it totally rocks. It is a very fast and easy way to read the forum and post as well, not to mention very easy to get to your PM mailboxes, read, and reply. It's about $3 to download the app, but totally worth it. The best part is with one click it will show you all the newest posts since your last visit, all on one easy to scroll page. Or you can click on each forum seperately and scroll through them that way as well. I would encourage everyone to check it out!

[Andy Velebil]

Has anyone else gotten this app yet? Just curious to see how its working out for others.

[Glenn E.]

Unfortunately I have a Windows Mobile phone (6.5 in my case), and it doesn't appear that they support WinMo.

[Peter W. Meek]

I normally follow FTLOP through my computer browser, along with 3 or 4 other forums. I use my iPad mostly as an eReader and for portable web browsing. Will Tapatalk work with other forums, using other forum software systems?

[Stewart T.]

Tapatalk currently works with 4 different forums software packages: phpbb, vBulletin, Invision, and SMF. However, the owners of those forums would need to install the appropriate plugin on the forum to allow the tapatalk phone app to interact with it. If the admins of those boards have already done so, you can navigate to their forum on your phone and a little popup message should appear saying that this forum is tapatalk enabled. Might want to touch base with Admins of those boards if you aren't sure.

If they are enabled, you would be able to access the forum using the tapatalk iphone or android app that you would have to purchase for $2.99 and download to your phone from the iphone or android marketplace.

Hope that answers your question - let me know if it doesn't!

[Stewart T.]

Hey Glenn (and other Windows 7 phone users)...

A separate company just built a Windows 7 version of Tapatalk (using the Tapatalk API):

http://www.board-express.com/

Merry Christmas!

[Glenn E.]

Sadly, my HTC Tilt 2 is Windows Mobile 6.5. I'm sure I have at least a year to go before I can replace it, too, in part because the first one somehow got water damaged and had to be replaced. (Only possibility is sweat from running with it in my pocket.)

[Roy Hersh]

... or drooling on the keyboard, checking out some photos of 20 year olds ... Tawny Ports of course!

[Todd Pettinger]

Is tapatalk available for crack berry? I looked on app world but did not see it... (may have been misspelling it tho)

[Stewart T.]

Hey Todd -

Tapatalk for BlackBerry is currently in public beta testing. You can download it using OTA (Over-The-Air) method by entering http://tapatalk.com/bb in the BlackBerry Browser.

Enjoy!

[Todd Pettinger]

Awesome, thanks for the heads up Stewart! I often don't have time to e around a computer and the forum, but my crack berry is almost always attached to me 2(yeah, I know, where ARE my priorities???)

[Eric Menchen]

So before buying tapatalk, I decided to check out another forum that I might want to use it on,
http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/forum/
They use phpBB just as FTLOP does. However, when I visit that forum on my Android smartphone, it is formatted totally differently than it is when I use my web browser. It appears that board recognizes I am connecting from a smartphone (via user agent I presume) and formats things appropriately. I don't know if they are using a phpBB add-on, or just have phpBB styles set up to serve up mobile version.

Could FTLOP be thus configured?

[Stewart T.]

There are a lot of phpbb plugins that forum owners can install to deliver a mobile version of their forums. In researching the various methods for implementing a phone-compatible version of our forum, Tapatalk was one of the most elegant, robust and simple-to-install solution we came across. I would have, of course, preferred that the actual app was free for all of the forum users, but I guess that is the trade-off.

While not ruling out a phpbb add-on of some sort to deliver up a mobile version of the site at some point in the future, we have done significant customizations to our forum, and sometimes add-ins don't play nice in customized phpbb installs.

So for now, you can access the whole ftlop site & forum on your phone using the built-in browser (just as you would do on a pc), or use the tapatalk app to access a light, but fully functional, version of the forum.

[Andy Velebil]

Accessing the Tasting Note Data Base (TNDB) is now even easier from a cell phone.

The old way you had to load the main page, log in, then navigate back to the TNDB page. A time consuming affair and a lot of unneeded downloading of data from a cell phone.

Today the feature was updated for subscribers wishing to access Roy's notes as well as User Tasting Notes. No longer will you have to navigate to the main page to log in. There is a automatic redirect that will take you to a simple log-in screen, then will automatically redirect you back to the TNDB. This will make it FAR easier and faster for subscribers to access all data in the TNDB from a cell phone.

[thomas hedegaard]

Excellent!

I can highly recommend the wine-app "vivino wine scanner" which I use for my iPhone. Amazing app, with a pretty huge database

[Erik Wiechers]

I can highly recommend the wine-app "vivino wine scanner" which I use for my iPhone. Amazing app, with a pretty huge database

Just downloaded the app, will test it. Thanks.