Waste of effort, just log into the site and look at it.
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First of all, programming is never a waste of effort! You always learn something new. Second, not everyone has computers with them all the time so checking website on the mobile app is a great solution for them.
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Yeah I have but
1.) Loading website consumes much bandwith while in the app case most or all of the graphics are stored in the app, no need to dl.
2.) App would be much fluid and neater solution as this website is not made for mobile phones.
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Suggestion for your suggestion: Instead of an app, tweak the styles of the existing website to work better for less bandwidth consumption in mobile browsing.
Since stylesheets for a website can be selectively loaded for the type of viewing device (it's something that browsers can detect if it is specified in the html of the webpage), simply specifying a mobile version that sets "display:none" to most of the graphic elements used in the listings would probably reduce bandwidth consumption greatly (iirc, browsers do not attempt to download images unless they're flagged as visible, and that particular declaration flags them as invisible).
Furthermore, it is possible to tweak the widths of the elements to be fluid instead of fixed. This allows the elements to stretch to a percentage of the width of the viewport, which works much better in a mobile browser. A lot of elements on this site are flexibly marked up to allow different stylesheet declarations that would be able to position elements to work with more limited viewports. It's just that the current/default stylesheet uses fixed widths for desktop browsing and does not specify a mobile alternative.
Also, there are lightweight javascript libraries tuned for mobile browsers that minimize bandwidth usage but still allow you to do fancy interface things if needed.
Logging in through an app is not an option, since it is against Steam's policies for a 3rd party app to solicit your Steam login details. That is why this website, and many other websites, use Steam's OpenID login method, which redirects you to Steam's website to perform the actual login process.
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Based on what (little) I know about CSS, this should be fairly easy to do. My brother has been on a web design kick lately, so I'll try to remember to ask him if he wants to throw something together and post it here.
Personally, I would trim it down to the top bar, games list, page navigation, and ads. Cutting out the special display of the featured giveaway, as well all all the info displayed below the ads, and all the images. Then on the page for a giveaway, you can have the image for that game, and a reduced view of the comments.
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Google Chrome is great for tinkering like this. In a few minutes, I was able to reconfigure the front page to be textual, hide most graphical elements. Unfortunately, a recent change to this website throws a little wrench into this plan. The Featured giveaway on the front page of the website does not show up on the regular giveaways list (it used to). If you hide the Featured giveaway, then you will not be able to see the currently expiring giveaway.
Regardless, cg would need to make the necessary changes to the site for the handheld stylesheet to load automatically in a mobile browser. Only minor changes are needed, but who knows, he could be working on a more elaborate solution already.
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I talked to my brother, and he said it would be easy, but that he would have to have access to some server-side files to do it himself. I haven't ever tried to log into this site on my phone, but I have an Evo so the screen is pretty large and it would probably work just fine as it is for me.
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No app. But mobile version of site (multiplatform motherfucker! :D)
http://www.steamgifts.com/forum/aqs3b/idea-make-mobile-version-of-site/page31337
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Hello my fellow Steamgifters:
We on the chat have been discussing that it would be a good idea to make a Steamgifts app for Android/iPhone.
The app could work as an RSS Feed, allowing you to keep track of your points and entries, as well as entering giveaways, much like the site! But, to be realistic about it, we can skip the forum part. The main thing is the giveaways and points. It has to be kept basic and easy to use.
And since we on the chat have combined knowledge equal to that of a chicken, we ask one of you forum dwellers to help us out and make this into a reality.
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