tapatalk- do I need it and why is it so hard to install?

[Lord Phobos]

And it does nothing that phpBB does not do natively.

Push notification.
The most hardly missed feature of phpbb.

[Swanny]

So it turns out if you have Tapatalk on your forum, there is a bug that's been there for a while that lets any user read any private message. See viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2469156

[noth]

whoops, ok, hopefully that is fixed by now

yeah but anyway TT is the sheer definition of a parasite in my view

My advice is if you haven't got your members used to using TT, *never* install it.

yeah good one Swanny, you said it and I second it

I was on a forum the other day, everytime a member posted through TT it added a final line of text "Posted through Tapatalk" to the post, now that is slick

[c1647562]

OK, there might be incompatibilities and problems, that's clear. However, allow me, and this time with my user hat on: Tapatalk is the greatest thing since sliced bread for forum users. Visiting every single forum manually, logging in, finding my way around is a pain. Even if every single forum is logical and nice and easy to use in its own right, they will be different, so I'll need to go around and check them all, one by one. Menus will be different, layouts will be different, post editors will be different.

Tapatalk is an aggregator that receives all that in a single place, even with push notifications. Much like RSS that saves me from visiting dozens or hundreds of sites every day in search of new content, I get all that I need in one place, with quick overview and a unified way to react if I want.

Asking me to go directly to each of the individual forums is much like asking me to abandon my e-mail client and, instead of getting everything into my mailbox, to make me go out to different possible senders and to check them one by one whether they have a new mail for me. Laughable, you will probably agree.

So, while I sympathize with software compatibility problems and bugs you have to deal with (I'm a developer, I know), I don't think this animosity helps anybody. Instead, you should contact Tapatalk and check out what problems you have and work on a solution together. Let you define the API the content can be reached with, let you define the necessary security measures and let you come up with a solution that satisfies all parties.

But rest assured, the need will not vanish, quite the opposite. There is a need for people to access forums without dealing with them one by one. And, to tell you frankly, if I were to start a forum now, the fact that phpBB has no solid Tapatalk support would be an immediate dealbreaker to me: not to abandon Tapatalk but to abandon phpBB.

Bye,
Gábor
(Needless to say, I'm not affiliated in any way, just a user.)

[thecoalman]

OK, there might be incompatibilities and problems, that's clear.

Like this one?

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2469156

Instead, you should contact Tapatalk and check out what problems you have and work on a solution together. Let you define the API the content can be reached with, let you define the necessary security measures and let you come up with a solution that satisfies all parties.

There is already guidelines in place to develop extensions.

https://www.phpbb.com/extensions/rules- ... on-policy/

[c1647562]

Yes, like that one. Come on, be fair, that's not a problem with Tapatalk as an idea and a service. That's a problem in a specific plugin that does something wrong. This is why I mentioned that a clear API is probably needed that allows third-party services to tap into the phpBB data, enforcing security rules.

Yes, that's what I was speaking about. You have problems with a specific implementation, and you most probably have every right to have that. Still, you don't blame the specific implementation, you blame and dismiss the whole idea. Steve, also a member of the team, goes as far as not even understanding what it's all about ("Tapatalk does nothing phpBB can't do out of the box").

That's completely beside the point. Nobody expects Tapatalk to do more, or even the same. We, users, expect it to do the basic stuff, but to do it repeatedly, in the background, for all the forums we're on. To fetch new items, especially in topics we subscribe to, and to provide all the advantages of an app over a browser-based approach: comfort, standard UI, unified account handling, deep integration with the underlying mobile system, just to name a few.

I didn't register here to troll you. I registered because I am (I was?) active in some forums running phpBB that, having been switched to the new version, probably will no longer have Tapatalk support, or at least not for some time. And I have to think twice or thrice whether I will be able to follow them any more because going the browser route is really not an option. And because I was really saddened by the animosity I found here towards not even just an implementation that can be fixed but the mere idea of users using this service to access the forums. I just wanted to give a perspective to some people, seemingly not really knowing what Tapatalk is really about for us, users, about a policy that (strictly in my opinion, of course) will do more harm than good to phpBB.

Bye,
Gábor

[david63]

There is, in my opinion, nothing wrong with the concept of Tapatalk and I can understand why users of mobile devices like/want/prefer to use it. The problem is that Tapatalk is not fully compatible with the latest versions of phpBB and, again in my opinion, is Tapatalk's responsibility to make it compatible.

It says a lot about Tapatalk in that they have mode no attempt to make it phpBB compatible nor have they submitted it to the CDB.

[HiFiKabin]

@ c1647562

Yes, Tapatalk may be a good idea BUT unless every forum you use is on the Tapatalk platform most of the "advantages" you mention go away. Say (just for arguments sake) that Tapatalk finally make a secure bug free extension for every forum software available. What does that give you? The ability for one log in for all fora. The boards will still look as they did, they will function as they did. You will still have the 'problems' of finding you way around the differing software with all of its individual foibles.

If Tapatalk want to make an extension for phpBB3.2.x then there is nothing to stop them. Why doesn't phpBB.com make it you ask? Simply because Tapatalk know their code, how it functions and how it will work with other software.

Taking your email analogy and looking at it from a slightly different angle. I purchase from many on line shops. I register with each one with my details in order to purchase. Why don't they all have a Tapatalk type intergeneration? Because it is not needed (or I suggest wanted)

I can see the advantage of Tapatalk to the Facebook generation where everything is put on a plate for you. Me, I prefer to have full control over the fora I own and the fora I use. I can not see anything making me want to change from how I do things now or in the future. But that is only my opinion which is just as valid as yours.

[c1647562]

Yes, Tapatalk may be a good idea BUT unless every forum you use is on the Tapatalk platform most of the "advantages" you mention go away. Say (just for arguments sake) that Tapatalk finally make a secure bug free extension for every forum software available. What does that give you? The ability for one log in for all fora. The boards will still look as they did, they will function as they did. You will still have the 'problems' of finding you way around the differing software with all of its individual foibles.

Most definitely not, what makes you think so? With Tapatalk, I don't see any board to look as it does. And I don't need to care about foibles. That's the whole point. Consider my mail client analogy, it's really very strong here. All my forums and all my messages come in in a single, unified UI, much like in an e-mail client, without any details of the original forums they originated on. That's exactly why I like it. Think about Thunderbird, for instance, with every forum being a folder. All messages appear in the folder (maybe subfolders for the topics), exactly the way TB displays them, not how the original forum shows and handles them. I only see titles and single images. I only see the full post if I click on it. I can scroll through them just as easily as in a mail client. And if I want to reply, TB's own text editor comes up, the same for all folders (forums).

Really, you can just consider it the RSS of forum platforms, just like we have RSS readers for websites. In my RSS reader I see the UI of my app, not the format and style of the website. The reader only extracts the content, not the layout. The only real difference is that, by necessity, this is two-way communication, not just reading.

OK, OK, I know all the software problems and bugs. I know it isn't really your task to do (although, as I said, I could imagine a little bit of active co-operation between the two systems to arrive at a good solution). I don't want to tell you how you need to develop phpBB. The main reason for my posts was that this thread really sounded like "those pesky, stupid users that force us to use that parasite crap, the best solution is to ignore them, Tapatalk is no use at all". I just wanted to give you a user's perspective which seems to be very different from what you think.

Bye,
Gábor

[HiFiKabin]

If I am understanding you correctly, all you want from a board is a RSS feed that you can reply to directly without visiting that particular board? An email list if you will. To take part in a board requires effort on all users part, which will include joining that board and reading its content.

We will have to agree to disagree on this.

[thecoalman]

Yes, like that one. Come on, be fair, that's not a problem with Tapatalk as an idea and a service.

I'm not discounting the idea or it's usefulness. What I am saying is there are procedures/guidelines in place for developers to build applications like that over the top of phpBB. Part of the reason for those guidelines is to help prevent things like the issue outlined in the link I posted.

I'm going to give you a bit of history here. Back in the phpBB 2.X days there was literally hundreds of modifications that largely went unchecked other than by the members themselves. phpBB2 itself had many security issues and this was compounded by all these modifications. That all changed with phpBB3 and why those guidelines are in place.

[DTMWC]

The TapaTalk plugin is free isn't it?

Surely from a company perspective having it validated by the people who make the software it's made for would increase its usage and get it free advertising in the first place a forum owner would look for add ons.

I would have thought that would have been a priority while at the same time giving potential installers peace of mind.

[Paul]

The last time tapatalk submitted their code to the (Back then) MODs database was, as far as I can find, in 2012, and it was denied because their MOD didn't follow the guidelines we have. They never submitted their extension, so we have no idea if it will meet the validation requirements we currently have. We have those requirements, as said before, to provide users with secure, working and quality extensions, and as such we do validate extensions that meet those requirements. We also provide extensions authors with tools to validate basic requirements prior to validation. If tapatalk doesn't submit their extension to the CDB, we are unable to validate it, and approve it when it meets the set requirements. If a extension author wants support when developing a extension we have a forum to provide them with support.

When looking at the past issues with tapatalk regarding security and privacy I personally would not recommend someone to use it, as it has had simply a lot of issues. Ofcourse when they provide newer versions were these issues are solved my personal advise could change.

[c1647562]

If I am understanding you correctly, all you want from a board is a RSS feed that you can reply to directly without visiting that particular board? An email list if you will. To take part in a board requires effort on all users part, which will include joining that board and reading its content.

We will have to agree to disagree on this.

It might come to this conclusion, but before we decide on it, let me try again because, frankly, I have the feeeling that you never saw it in the flesh, really.

No, not at all. Both RSS and mail were technical analogies. When I take part in a forum, I do take part in full. Nobody practically even knows whether I read it in my browser or via Tapatalk (the signature mentioned here, "posted by Tapatalk from my this-and-this device" is an optional signature that every user is free to modify or disable, it's not something the system adds to all posts, no matter what). So, yes, I join, take part in its life, in its discussions, everything. Simply, I use another technology. You might prefer to use webmail like mail.google.com to browse, read, reply your e-mail while I use an e-mail client that fetches the same messages and replies the same messages. Using Tapatalk to access a forum is akin to using POP/IMAP to access my mail. If an ISP would tell me I have to use their webmail because there is no POP/IMAP, I would say no, thanks. If a BB would tell me I need to use their web interface, I'm considering saying the same.

And again, because I feel the need to reiterate: it's not that I expect the phpBB community to do the job instead of Tapatalk. As I said, I only started it because I felt a very strong animosity towards it in this thread. And BB owners come here for knowledge and advice, so I really wanted the voice of the other side be heard, too.

Bye,
Gábor

[HiFiKabin]

If I am understanding you correctly, all you want from a board is a RSS feed that you can reply to directly without visiting that particular board? An email list if you will. To take part in a board requires effort on all users part, which will include joining that board and reading its content.

We will have to agree to disagree on this.

It might come to this conclusion, but before we decide on it, let me try again because, frankly, I have the feeeling that you never saw it in the flesh, really. <snip>

Yes I have, and I hate it.

... but then I use a phone to make phone calls and a computer to access websites