Here is some CSS written to take that loathsome white bar off of your iPhones, maybe iPads. It will hide the chat bar in iPad/iPhone. You can't use chat in iPad/iPhone anyway since it built with Flash.
This CSS only check the screen size not really iPad/iPhone. I think it doesn't affect the desktop browsers which I haven't do the full test, only tested some of them and it seems fine. But it possible hides the chat bar for Android or other mobile/pad too. Sorry I don't have Android to test.
/* iPad [portrait + landscape] */
@media only screen and (min-device-width: 768px) and (max-device-width: 1024px) {
#xgDock{display:none;}
}
/* iPhone [portrait + landscape] */
@media only screen and (max-device-width: 480px) {
#xgDock{display:none;}
}
******************
I found this in the Ning Creators network. Not sure if anyone is not a Creator will be able to read the entire dialogue, but if not the CSS above should do the trick. http://creators.ning.com/forum/topics/hot-fix-chat-bar-issue-in
Replies
I believe you need to add the two styles mentioned above into your site-specific style sheet and upload to your server. (Maybe you did that already?)
These two additional styles "as-is" won't help a viewer on an iPhone, as there isn't an easy way to incorporate a personal style-sheet override on those devices. It has to be served as part of the page load.
Are you speaking English, Jim?
If Ning was at the conference, they would realize that hundreds of thousands, if not millions of their users used mobile devices to participate. That being said, there should be a check box in the user profile that allows turning off that chat bar, not having people who have no understanding of html code have to use it as a possibly solution.
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
Larry, this is a code hack developed by a third party developer. You're absolutely right, a user preference would be great. But most sites require at least a rudimentary knowledge of HTML/CSS and perhaps Javascript or PHP once you get beyond the basics. Adding two declarations to the CSS is no big deal, especially if it's site wide. It's not a solution that the end user can employ - has to be done at the site level.
Connie, you should ask your code guru to test to see if adding the CSS will fix the white bar problem.
There are other issues with Ning sites, too, from the user interface to the confusion between blogs and fora. No need to discuss that here. The neat thing about Ning is that it allows people with virtually no code knowledge to create robust custom social communities. Despite its flaws, it's a great platform, and offers a ton of features for not a ton of money.
And back to the point about mobile users -- yes, a mobile solution would be great. If you look at artfairinsiders.com/m, you'll see that's it's a poor solution, sort of a bandaid. This isn't AFI's fault - it's a design flaw. The white chat bar is just one symptom of a design that's not really intended to go mobile. Yet.
and so there you have it, Jim. For a little piece of money and not tons of tech skills I've built this site that does so many things. Why can't we make it perfect? If you know of another site that can handle all of this stuff I'll go there. Yes, my son used to be a VP at Ning, but we are past that now.
Ning wasn't there. Too bad.
I have faked my way through lots of html code simply by copying and pasting. You don't have to understand too much to do that.
Larry, were you able to access the link above that went to the Ning creators site?
I read it Connie. There wasn't much more than what you copied and pasted. Plenty here to understand what it's supposed to do. creators.ning.com doesn't seem to be a closed community. Maybe for posting.
If you know how to open the global style sheet that governs the site, you can paste that code in, move it to your testing server (do you have a testing server?) and see if it solves the problem. If testing with a couple mobile devices shows that the bar is gone, you can move it to your live environment.
The developer did mention that it may cause other platforms to hide the chat bar. It looks for window size, not platform, so if your browser window is set below the minimums, it will shut out the chat bar. You could test this by making a small browser window (under 1024 x 768 for iPad; under 480 wide for iPhone) and then opening the site.
Oh, I was thinking it was something each person would have to do to their own device. You are saying it is something I should do? Sure, I can cut and paste code into the CSS, I think...
The lines of code you reference need to be incorporated into your site for the patch to work. I'm speaking CSS/HTML, as that's the code you quoted, above. :-)