Dabble for Android Phones and Tablets

General Discussion
#21

Good question Nabeel, and I will answer it.

Thank you for your thoughts Jeremiah! You are exactly right. The post you replied to was from last April, and we’ve come a long way since then. I’ll share the updates for you.

Mobile is close to being done. A week or two until beta, a month-ish until release. :crossed_fingers: My birthday is mid-April (the big 4 Oh, it’s all downhill from here). I would love to have this in your hands by then as a birthday present to myself. I have been working hard on it for months. Most of the work has actually been on a revamped cloud sync to work well on poor internet. I may write a blog post about that later.

The mobile release will be using Responsive Design practices so that it looks and works well on any size screen and device. The sidebars will hide themselves on smaller screens and allow you to access them as overlays like mobile apps do. You can also collapse them on desktop now (er, after release) and Saturday I even added resizing so you can drag them to the size you want (including bigger to show longer titles better. @John_Wilker, Saturday was for you).

PWA (which stands for Progressive Web App for those following along at home) is more than just responsive design. It includes offline use which Dabble already has. And PWA includes being able to “install” a web app to your phone’s screen like a native app. I should have this working for Android just fine. However, Apple has continued to drag their feet with support for PWAs because it circumvents their app store and thus profits. They do have some support, so I will be testing it out soon to see if I can offer the full experience on iOS as well. Either way, everyone will get mobile Dabble. You just might have to deal with Safari’s top/bottom URL/action bars taking up more space than you would like.

This release has been very long in coming because of the amount of work involved. You have all been very patient, and I am super grateful for that.

What other questions do you have about this upcoming release?

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#22
  1. YAY on resizing!
  2. Awesome update! I’m excited to take it for a spin when you release! No doubt it’s a big deal and a lot of work, thanks so much for doing it!

oh and message from the future, 40 isn’t too bad, but try not to get hurt, it takes 3x longer to heal LOL.

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#23

Truth. I sacrificed 3 years of health to build Dabble, and I injured myself after running again (achilles tendonitis). It has taken 9 months to heal enough where I can start running again. I’m taking it slower this time.

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#24

Hi @Jacob thank you for the update, that’s great news about the mobile app nearly being ready. Will the Beta be available to the community? Would be happy to give it a go and provide feedback?

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#25

Noted. I will let you know.

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#26

Hi. In the support articles I can see how to add a link to the Dabble app on an iPhone using Safari. I can’t see the same thing for Android. When I open app.dabblewriter.com in Chrome on my Google Pixel, I get no option to Add to Homescreen.

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#27

Try clicking the three dots and for the menu … There should be a Save to Home Screen option. All I see because I have it installed is Open Dabble.

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#28

That’s the thing. When I’m in Dabble and I open the three dots menu there is no Add to Homescreen option. Interestingly, when I do the same thing from this page (the community page), I get an Install App option.

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#29

OK, fixed! I closed all my Chrome tabs, opened Dabble, logged out and logged back in again, and the Install App option was there. Thanks for your help.

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#30

glad you got it open. The message typically pops up after one or two visits of visiting the site page. Since you are a visitor often it offered you easier access.

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