Formal Discussion

[Vitthal Kaanya]

Hello Experts,

As we know OFBiz has there own frontend themes. But my question is, Can
OFBiz support (*RWD*) Responsive Web Design?  Do you have any idea about
this?

If yes please provide valuable solution for the same.


Regards,

Kaanya, Vitthal Kaanya!

[Nick Rosser-2]

Yes, the technology all exists to support this ... not sure if I would
say that it's ready to go out-of-the-box but all the pieces are
available for a RWD solution.

Take a look at our BigFish solution. Our demo shows a responsive design
solution ... resize your browser to 450 pixels or less.

http://bigfish.solveda.com:8082/online/shop/main

Nick

On 7/30/2013 6:44 AM, Vitthal Kaanya wrote:

> Hello Experts,
>
> As we know OFBiz has there own frontend themes. But my question is, Can
> OFBiz support (*RWD*) Responsive Web Design?  Do you have any idea about
> this?
>
> If yes please provide valuable solution for the same.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Kaanya, Vitthal Kaanya!
>

[Paul Piper]

Hi Kaanya,

the short answer is yes. We also implemented a responsive web design with syracus: http://www.syracus.net/.

I would recommend to you to use one of the standard ofbiz themes and have somebody rework it for you.

Take a look at a beginners guide as this: http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/beginners-guide-to-responsive-web-design 

@bigfish: though the constant stream of advertisement on your end never seems to end, please bear in mind that your work is adaptive, not responsive.

Cheers,
Paul

[Ted Byers]

On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 8:23 AM, Paul Piper <[hidden email]> wrote:
> [snip]
> @bigfish: though the constant stream of advertisement on your end never
> seems to end, please bear in mind that your work is adaptive, not
> responsive.
>
Hi Paul,

I don't see the messages from bigfish as ads so much as contributions
regarding the nature of what can be done and how, and the result of
their work making it happen serves as a constructive example.  That is
welcome, as is your main response to Kaanya.

But aside from that, what is the difference between 'adaptive' and
'responsive'?  In the context of standard english, they generally mean
the same thing: the making of a change in response to a change in
circumstances.  If one person spoke of adaptive environmental
management, and another spoke of responsive environmental management,
they'd be talking about the same thing vis a change in how the
environmental system in question is managed upon observing a
significant change in the state of that system (this is something
introduced to environmental science by Prof. Holling, at the
Univeristy of British Columbia, back in the '70's, in his book called
'Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management', btw, in case there
is anyone reading this with an interest in environmental science).  In
my experience in software engineering, I have yet to see anyone make a
useful distinction between 'adaaptive' design and 'responsive' design,
although I have seen recent work that talks about making interfaces
that adapt to the properties of the device on which it is used.

Cheers

Ted

[Nick Rosser-2]

Paul,

BigFish is an honest open offering that anyone is encouraged to adopt.
Constant stream of advertising? Uh? I rarely respond with BigFish
examples unless I think it will genuinely help the poster. My last post
was on 1-Jul-2013, in response to someone who adopted BigFish and
offered some encouraging words regarding our solution. With the many
posts to this ML I find it hard to believe that you take offense from
this post. I guess I'll never quite understand the reaction of some
members of this ML.

BigFish should not be a threat for anyone, if anything I would hope that
it would be encouraging if there are BigFish adopters, it should be a
good thing for the underlying OFBiz platform. This benefits us all.

In regard to responsive vs adaptive I'm also puzzled by your comment.
BigFish is using a "responsive" solution. One simple definition of RWD
is "The approach uses CSS media queries to modify the presentation of a
website based on the size of the device display" -- and that's been our
approach. I'm sure there are many good definitions our there and I'm
sure we could all debate this further. Here's one reference that I think
gives a concise definition:
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/web-designer/what-is-the-difference-between-responsive-vs-adaptive-web-design/

Nick

On 7/30/2013 8:23 AM, Paul Piper wrote:

> Hi Kaanya,
>
> the short answer is yes. We also implemented a responsive web design with
> syracus: http://www.syracus.net/.
>
> I would recommend to you to use one of the standard ofbiz themes and have
> somebody rework it for you.
>
> Take a look at a beginners guide as this:
> http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/beginners-guide-to-responsive-web-design
>
> @bigfish: though the constant stream of advertisement on your end never
> seems to end, please bear in mind that your work is adaptive, not
> responsive.
>
> Cheers,
> Paul
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://ofbiz.135035.n4.nabble.com/Formal-Discussion-tp4643139p4643147.html
> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

[Paul Piper]

Hi Ted,

the difference between adaptive and responsive is as follows:

Adaptive is modified with specific screens in mind - in the case of the link
shared 450px. Anything in between is not covered, as I pointed out in
another thread a while ago. Hence it doesn't work for any device not fitting
the target spec - tablets, android phones, phones held sideways etc.

Responsive on the other hand adapts itself to the different screen sizes,
stretches and modifies the look and feel entirely for a broader range of
devices.

As a quick reference, have a look at:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14831530/responsive-design-vs-adaptive-design
http://www.symphonyonline.co.uk/design/item/responsive-layout-vs-adaptive-layout-whats-the-difference

You can achieve an optimal UX with both implementations, but they certainly
aren't the same. The former also requires alot of work and constant
modification.

As far as the bigfish promotion is concerned, I am fine with people showing
their products, but blatantly promoting it on every post is just not my cup
of tea. Nuff said...

Cheers



--
View this message in context: http://ofbiz.135035.n4.nabble.com/Formal-Discussion-tp4643139p4643149.html
Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

[Paul Piper]

Hi Ted,

the difference between adaptive and responsive is as follows:

Adaptive is modified with specific screens in mind - in the case of the link shared 450px. Anything in between is not covered, as I pointed out in another thread a while ago. Hence it doesn't work for any device not fitting the target spec - tablets, android phones, phones held sideways etc.

Responsive on the other hand adapts itself to the different screen sizes, stretches and modifies the look and feel entirely for a broader range of devices.

As a quick reference, have a look at:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14831530/responsive-design-vs-adaptive-design
http://www.symphonyonline.co.uk/design/item/responsive-layout-vs-adaptive-layout-whats-the-difference

You can achieve an optimal UX with both implementations, but they certainly aren't the same. The former also requires alot of work and constant modification.

As far as the bigfish promotion is concerned, I am fine with people showing their products, but blatantly promoting it on every post is just not my cup of tea. Nuff said...

Cheers

[Ted Byers]

Hi Paul and Nick,

I have now read all three articles to which you two have provided links.

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/web-designer/what-is-the-difference-between-responsive-vs-adaptive-web-design/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14831530/responsive-design-vs-adaptive-design
http://www.symphonyonline.co.uk/design/item/responsive-layout-vs-adaptive-layout-whats-the-difference

If those are truly representative of what adaptive and responsive
design are generally conceived to be, then, in my view as a software
engineer who not only designs applications ranging from n-tier
client-server applications through stand-alone desktop applications
and services (in linux implemented as daemons), to web applications,
but who also directs junior engineers as to technologies to use,
functional requirements and how these are to be met, I regard
focussing on an alleged distinction between adaptive and responsive
design.  As it happens, in my own practice, I mix and match elements
of the favourite techniques of advocates of both, based on my
definition of the application's functional requirements, the
flexibility and maintainability of the code base, and the cost of
development (in both time and dollars).  In short, they are both
merely subsets of what I taught my staff as adaptive design.  I do not
deny that there may be differences, but those differences are trivial
at best, and in the larger scheme of things, do not matter.  I am not
one who cares what label gets applied to a given practice as long as
communication is clear and the job actually gets done in a timely
manner.  To be blunt, I would tear a strip off any of my staff that
wasted time I am paying for by arguing about the difference between
adaptive vs responsive design (or similar trivia best left to the
academic world) instead of discussing or analyzing what really
matters, which is how we're going to finish the project at hand in a
way that both supports all defined functional requirements and keeps
cost and time to delivery/deployment at a minimum without sacrificing
our ability to refactor or extend the application in question in the
future, and then, of course, getting it done.

Cheers

Ted

[Nick Rosser-2]

Ted,

Agree. Which is why we've never had the discussion at Solveda :-) We
just went with a best practice for a "small device" solution, which
seems to be working for us. And I always describe this as "responsive"
because clients understand that the UI responds dynamically to the
device being used (generically based on size, not on the specific
device). Good luck with your project.

Nick

On 7/30/2013 10:40 AM, Ted Byers wrote:

> Hi Paul and Nick,
>
> I have now read all three articles to which you two have provided links.
>
> http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/web-designer/what-is-the-difference-between-responsive-vs-adaptive-web-design/
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14831530/responsive-design-vs-adaptive-design
> http://www.symphonyonline.co.uk/design/item/responsive-layout-vs-adaptive-layout-whats-the-difference
>
> If those are truly representative of what adaptive and responsive
> design are generally conceived to be, then, in my view as a software
> engineer who not only designs applications ranging from n-tier
> client-server applications through stand-alone desktop applications
> and services (in linux implemented as daemons), to web applications,
> but who also directs junior engineers as to technologies to use,
> functional requirements and how these are to be met, I regard
> focussing on an alleged distinction between adaptive and responsive
> design.  As it happens, in my own practice, I mix and match elements
> of the favourite techniques of advocates of both, based on my
> definition of the application's functional requirements, the
> flexibility and maintainability of the code base, and the cost of
> development (in both time and dollars).  In short, they are both
> merely subsets of what I taught my staff as adaptive design.  I do not
> deny that there may be differences, but those differences are trivial
> at best, and in the larger scheme of things, do not matter.  I am not
> one who cares what label gets applied to a given practice as long as
> communication is clear and the job actually gets done in a timely
> manner.  To be blunt, I would tear a strip off any of my staff that
> wasted time I am paying for by arguing about the difference between
> adaptive vs responsive design (or similar trivia best left to the
> academic world) instead of discussing or analyzing what really
> matters, which is how we're going to finish the project at hand in a
> way that both supports all defined functional requirements and keeps
> cost and time to delivery/deployment at a minimum without sacrificing
> our ability to refactor or extend the application in question in the
> future, and then, of course, getting it done.
>
> Cheers
>
> Ted

[Jacques Le Roux]

I think Paul as a point here, but I was reading Paul's comment in this 6 months old thread http://markmail.org/message/3a5cdvxucijkf4mw and wondered about it.
Because it sounded like opening a can of worms to me. So I asked advice to someone who knows far better current UI tricks and trends than me.

Here is what she said:
<<Javascript has its uses (e.g. exchanging images for high rez screens for higher resolution images) but in most cases Responsive Solutions will be CSS based with maybe some javascript to do some stuff in smaller screens for opening and closing things.
As for max-width: the trend with responsive design has been to make it look good on all sizes of screens, meaning you either work from your smallest version (mobile first) or the largest (desktop first) and then put breakpoints as your design needs them. Not as devices change because device pixel sizes change at a rate that is not sustainable to maintain. That is also why user agent sniffing and device sniffing is not a good idea. Samsung alone has a range of a 100 or so smartphones. Chances that you are sniffing all correctly is almost 0. Just for a short look at what a range of pixels we are talking: http://screensiz.es/phone. And that is leaving "strange" devices, like a car monitor, a PS Vita, a Nintendo wii, your refrigerator, etc., out of the equation...
We are moving towards a world where you have to design apart devices, purely based on pixel widths and showing everything in a visually pleasing way. That is why, imo, only a truly fluid layout can survive that will adapt to any screen width>>

I believe she is quite right, things are evolving far to fast (er, screen resolutions ;o) to try to follow them...

Jacques

----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Piper" <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 3:48 PM
Subject: Re: Formal Discussion

> Hi Ted,
>
> the difference between adaptive and responsive is as follows:
>
> Adaptive is modified with specific screens in mind - in the case of the link
> shared 450px. Anything in between is not covered, as I pointed out in
> another thread a while ago. Hence it doesn't work for any device not fitting
> the target spec - tablets, android phones, phones held sideways etc.
>
> Responsive on the other hand adapts itself to the different screen sizes,
> stretches and modifies the look and feel entirely for a broader range of
> devices.
>
> As a quick reference, have a look at:
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14831530/responsive-design-vs-adaptive-design
> http://www.symphonyonline.co.uk/design/item/responsive-layout-vs-adaptive-layout-whats-the-difference
>
> You can achieve an optimal UX with both implementations, but they certainly
> aren't the same. The former also requires alot of work and constant
> modification.
>
> As far as the bigfish promotion is concerned, I am fine with people showing
> their products, but blatantly promoting it on every post is just not my cup
> of tea. Nuff said...
>
> Cheers
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://ofbiz.135035.n4.nabble.com/Formal-Discussion-tp4643139p4643149.html
> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

[Ted Byers]

On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 10:49 AM, Nick Rosser <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Ted,
>
> Agree. Which is why we've never had the discussion at Solveda :-) We just
> went with a best practice for a "small device" solution, which seems to be
> working for us. And I always describe this as "responsive" because clients
> understand that the UI responds dynamically to the device being used
> (generically based on size, not on the specific device). Good luck with your
> project.
>
> Nick
>

Thanks Nick,

Ironically enough, my next major project involves only the physical,
transport and application layers of an application that provides a
posting API, to be used by my ecommerce transaction processing api,
connected to a foreign bank that presently does not have a posting API
supporting ecommerce.  For this one, there is no presentation layer.
;-)

Cheers

Ted

[SkipDever]

Yes it can.

Check out:

https://www.swiftcarb.com/external/control/calc

This is a machining calculator built on ofbiz.  Open it using Firefoxes
Responsive Design View.  Fill out the first form you get with the above link
(Pick any tool to evalate) and then change the device size using firefox to
see the result.

This is not the best example, but it is all done using CSS.

This is the only public application we have produced using responsive
design, but we will be doing a website using it shortly.

Skip

-----Original Message-----
From: Vitthal Kaanya [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 3:45 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Formal Discussion


Hello Experts,

As we know OFBiz has there own frontend themes. But my question is, Can
OFBiz support (*RWD*) Responsive Web Design?  Do you have any idea about
this?

If yes please provide valuable solution for the same.


Regards,

Kaanya, Vitthal Kaanya!

[SkipDever]

This is my experience as well.  One other thing though is bandwidth
constraints.  Feeding marginally useful images to a bandwidth constrained
device makes the application less responsive.  So, some javascript
"sniffing" is useful when this is the case and building the page with some
<#if> ftl is helpful in solving this problem.

Skip

-----Original Message-----
From: Jacques Le Roux [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 7:51 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: Formal Discussion


I think Paul as a point here, but I was reading Paul's comment in this 6
months old thread http://markmail.org/message/3a5cdvxucijkf4mw and wondered
about it.
Because it sounded like opening a can of worms to me. So I asked advice to
someone who knows far better current UI tricks and trends than me.

Here is what she said:
<<Javascript has its uses (e.g. exchanging images for high rez screens for
higher resolution images) but in most cases Responsive Solutions will be CSS
based with maybe some javascript to do some stuff in smaller screens for
opening and closing things.
As for max-width: the trend with responsive design has been to make it look
good on all sizes of screens, meaning you either work from your smallest
version (mobile first) or the largest (desktop first) and then put
breakpoints as your design needs them. Not as devices change because device
pixel sizes change at a rate that is not sustainable to maintain. That is
also why user agent sniffing and device sniffing is not a good idea. Samsung
alone has a range of a 100 or so smartphones. Chances that you are sniffing
all correctly is almost 0. Just for a short look at what a range of pixels
we are talking: http://screensiz.es/phone. And that is leaving "strange"
devices, like a car monitor, a PS Vita, a Nintendo wii, your refrigerator,
etc., out of the equation...
We are moving towards a world where you have to design apart devices, purely
based on pixel widths and showing everything in a visually pleasing way.
That is why, imo, only a truly fluid layout can survive that will adapt to
any screen width>>

I believe she is quite right, things are evolving far to fast (er, screen
resolutions ;o) to try to follow them...

Jacques

----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Piper" <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 3:48 PM
Subject: Re: Formal Discussion


> Hi Ted,
>
> the difference between adaptive and responsive is as follows:
>
> Adaptive is modified with specific screens in mind - in the case of the
link
> shared 450px. Anything in between is not covered, as I pointed out in
> another thread a while ago. Hence it doesn't work for any device not
fitting
> the target spec - tablets, android phones, phones held sideways etc.
>
> Responsive on the other hand adapts itself to the different screen sizes,
> stretches and modifies the look and feel entirely for a broader range of
> devices.
>
> As a quick reference, have a look at:
>
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14831530/responsive-design-vs-adaptive-de
sign
>
http://www.symphonyonline.co.uk/design/item/responsive-layout-vs-adaptive-la
yout-whats-the-difference
>
> You can achieve an optimal UX with both implementations, but they
certainly
> aren't the same. The former also requires alot of work and constant
> modification.
>
> As far as the bigfish promotion is concerned, I am fine with people
showing
> their products, but blatantly promoting it on every post is just not my
cup
> of tea. Nuff said...
>
> Cheers
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context:
http://ofbiz.135035.n4.nabble.com/Formal-Discussion-tp4643139p4643149.html
> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

[Vitthal Kaanya]

Thanks everyone for your quick response! I think I will be able to do it
now.


Regards,

Kaanya, Vitthal Kaanya!


On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 10:46 PM, Skip <[hidden email]> wrote:

> This is my experience as well.  One other thing though is bandwidth
> constraints.  Feeding marginally useful images to a bandwidth constrained
> device makes the application less responsive.  So, some javascript
> "sniffing" is useful when this is the case and building the page with some
> <#if> ftl is helpful in solving this problem.
>
> Skip
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jacques Le Roux [mailto:[hidden email]]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 7:51 AM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: Formal Discussion
>
>
> I think Paul as a point here, but I was reading Paul's comment in this 6
> months old thread http://markmail.org/message/3a5cdvxucijkf4mw and
> wondered
> about it.
> Because it sounded like opening a can of worms to me. So I asked advice to
> someone who knows far better current UI tricks and trends than me.
>
> Here is what she said:
> <<Javascript has its uses (e.g. exchanging images for high rez screens for
> higher resolution images) but in most cases Responsive Solutions will be
> CSS
> based with maybe some javascript to do some stuff in smaller screens for
> opening and closing things.
> As for max-width: the trend with responsive design has been to make it look
> good on all sizes of screens, meaning you either work from your smallest
> version (mobile first) or the largest (desktop first) and then put
> breakpoints as your design needs them. Not as devices change because device
> pixel sizes change at a rate that is not sustainable to maintain. That is
> also why user agent sniffing and device sniffing is not a good idea.
> Samsung
> alone has a range of a 100 or so smartphones. Chances that you are sniffing
> all correctly is almost 0. Just for a short look at what a range of pixels
> we are talking: http://screensiz.es/phone. And that is leaving "strange"
> devices, like a car monitor, a PS Vita, a Nintendo wii, your refrigerator,
> etc., out of the equation...
> We are moving towards a world where you have to design apart devices,
> purely
> based on pixel widths and showing everything in a visually pleasing way.
> That is why, imo, only a truly fluid layout can survive that will adapt to
> any screen width>>
>
> I believe she is quite right, things are evolving far to fast (er, screen
> resolutions ;o) to try to follow them...
>
> Jacques
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Paul Piper" <[hidden email]>
> To: <[hidden email]>
> Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 3:48 PM
> Subject: Re: Formal Discussion
>
>
> > Hi Ted,
> >
> > the difference between adaptive and responsive is as follows:
> >
> > Adaptive is modified with specific screens in mind - in the case of the
> link
> > shared 450px. Anything in between is not covered, as I pointed out in
> > another thread a while ago. Hence it doesn't work for any device not
> fitting
> > the target spec - tablets, android phones, phones held sideways etc.
> >
> > Responsive on the other hand adapts itself to the different screen sizes,
> > stretches and modifies the look and feel entirely for a broader range of
> > devices.
> >
> > As a quick reference, have a look at:
> >
>
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14831530/responsive-design-vs-adaptive-de
> sign
> >
>
> http://www.symphonyonline.co.uk/design/item/responsive-layout-vs-adaptive-la
> yout-whats-the-difference
> >
> > You can achieve an optimal UX with both implementations, but they
> certainly
> > aren't the same. The former also requires alot of work and constant
> > modification.
> >
> > As far as the bigfish promotion is concerned, I am fine with people
> showing
> > their products, but blatantly promoting it on every post is just not my
> cup
> > of tea. Nuff said...
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > View this message in context:
> http://ofbiz.135035.n4.nabble.com/Formal-Discussion-tp4643139p4643149.html
> > Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>