New responsive design for upcoming version 3.30. BETA testers needed!

Hi Everyone!

As you may know we was going to make the default theme responsive in the upcoming nopCommerce 3.30. And here we go. Could you please get the latest development version and test it? Any suggestion is welcome.

You can also enable/disable responsive design by going to admin area > configuration > settings > general and miscellaneous settings and ticking 'Responsive design supported'.

We also left the previous implementation of mobile devices support (jQuery Mobile). So now a store owner can choose any preferred design for mobile users.

UNDONE (and questions):
1. Responsive horizontal category top menu (for smaller mobile devices). Should we do it?
2. Responsive  support for RTL (right-to-left). It's quite easy to add it. But won't it make maintenance for all these CSS files too complex?
3. Should we hide Nivo Slider on the home page for smaller devices?
4. Your suggestions?

One off-topic question. What do you think about moving to Bootstrap? The main doubt here is existing store owners. Today there are about 15K live stores powered by nopCommerce. A lot of them are highly customized. And moving to Bootstrap can seriously affect them (it could be really hard or time-consuming for their developers). On the other side it can boost creation of a lot of new themes for nopCommerce (migration from other systems, etc). Of course, it'll also affect existing theme developers who have a lot of themes already developed

Anyway please take it for a test drive and let us know what you think!

Please also see the following topic by Hezy with a live site set up using the latest version - https://www.nopcommerce.com/boards/t/28826/nop-330-responsive-theme.aspx

Hi Andrei,

We will give it a try and provide feedback.

Why do you think that moving to Bootstrap will boost the creation of new themes?

Thanks

Thank for the update Andrei !

I will test the 3.30 beta and will provide my feedback.

Suggestions in regard to the asked questions:

1) I think it is a good idea to have a responsive menu. You can see the menu on my site: http://www.strivingprogrammers.com/

2) Yes, I agree - Responsive support for RTL will add more work for maintenance. I think this can be put on hold for now and wait for the feedback from the users after 3.30 release and if there is a lot of demand, then consider this option for 3.40

3) Nivo slider - I think, it is good to keep the option for it in the code and hardcode it as a condition for small devices, user who do not want slider on the smaller screen can comment it out and and still keep the slider in desktop version. I have the similar logic for the banner on my site: http://www.strivingprogrammers.com/

1. Testing v3.30 (vs2013, sql2012)... so far great, Admin excellent!

2. ? mobile devices support (jQuery Mobile)
This must stay, it's the only option which looks Ok on an iPhone.

3. Responsive
http://www.kitesurf.co.il/ looks really bad on iPhone (needs a graphic designer?), Ok on iPad & desktop.

http://themes.dresscode.nopdestek.com/ great on ipad, desktop, like Kitesurf, needs re-work on iPhone

4. What do you think about moving to Bootstrap?
Agree, "Microsoft announced Bootstrap integration for project templates at Build 2013 Day 2 Keynote"

5. Retain jQuery Mobile?
Agree.
vs2013 & jQuery Mobile, see http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/680364c2-7e6b-460c-b4b7-008ef96d8078?SRC=VSIDE

Nop-Templates.com wrote:
Today there are really a lot of existing Bootstrap themes for other systems (e-commerce, CMS, etc). People can start migration of them to nopCommerce (once they get appropriate permission from their owners). It could be very easy because the markup will be almost the same

Looks good!

1)  I think it is very important to have a responsive horizontal category top menu.  This make for a lot nicer presentation on small screens.  In a responsive theme I am making for 3.2 I decided to use the Jquerry Slicknav to be able to easily create a nice navigational system for small screens.  Here is the jquerry plugin if you want to take a look.  http://slicknav.com/#examples.  Also, here is the github page for it: https://github.com/ComputerWolf/SlickNav

If you want to see how I integrated it with nopcommerce 3.2, let me know.  I think it makes for a better navigation on small screens while still retaining the look of the large screen by having a menu bar in the same place.

2)  In regards to RTL, I think that if the default theme is changing to responsive then the RTL should as well if it is supported.

3) I am not sure if we should hide it, but is there a way to show the images at a smaller resolution?  

Also, as long as you are changing the theme, have you tried using one column template on the home page instead of the three column template?  I personally think that might be a better option.

If there are lots of nice Bootstrap themes then it might be a better to check to use bootstrap to bring in more themes.  Even though this will be tough to those who need to upgrade, it might be part of the necessary growing pains to make it a better system.  If Bootstrap is the way everyone is going now days, we could liken it to when nopcommerce changed to MVC.  I think everyone wants to keep nopcommerce on the cutting edge.

Tim2376 wrote:
I fully agree. +1

Tim2376 wrote:
Also agree. Done. Please get the latest version

Hello,
A touch enabled slider would be great on the homepage.
Something like: http://flexslider.woothemes.com/ (tested on my Nexus 4).
Best regards.