Forum Layout Mobile Devices

Hi I just want to change the way the forum looks on mobile devices. Or if anything make it back to how it was after I just ticked the "Disable Mobile Theme" in forum layout.

So before the forum always looked liked the desktop layout when clicking on Full Site on mobile devices. 

After unchecking that option thinking it will go back to how it was before the forum now looks different, in all honesty its a little better with the layout on the forum home page when using mobile devices now, but when entering a board to see threads it looks strange and bulky. example attached.



It there a way to customise how topic threads look inside boards?

I want them to look like this, example attached below

It is possible to customize using CSS under Admin -> Manage Style  then edit the style

I am no expert on CSS changes for mobile though.

Hi and thank you for the reply. I had hoped for a little point in the right direct as I am a paying customer with multiple add-on upgrades too. I wouldn't even know where to begin with all the CSS code. I'm not a coding person. I guess I will have to  pay for someone on Fiverr to help?

I can't even post it here as the code exceeds 80000 character long. 

I am sorry just is not my expertise, the mobile side css at all, I myself had to pay to get the themes developed a long time ago with the colors etc.

You can make maybe ask AI, co-pilot or chagpt.com. My screen on mobile looks different maybe since I have iphone SE2.


I might be steering you in the wrong direction, do not try edit the css since it look like you are using a legacy theme.
Any reason you are not using the new CAF 2.0 theme? like this support forum which should be responsive and handle mobile.


If you can't use the newer them.
Do you have the responsive mode setting enabled?

"Disable Responsive Mode on Mobile" try turning that on/off and see the difference.

Hi and thank you for the reply. Im not sure where to locate this setting option "Responsive mode setting". Ive had a look. Please can you define the path in the admin section to get there.?

I must say I think the original theme is far better than CAF 2.0, most great popular forums use the theme Im currently using and people like familiarity. 

Regards

Admin -> Features and Options -> Layout
Disable Responsive Mode on Mobile


I am curious at what you do not like about the new theme. I think it is vastly superior than old theme in terms of looks/layout

Hi thanks again for help. Disabling Responsive Mode on Mobile is not a good look for the forum, but It's nice to know what that does now. 

Regarding the new theme, its just not the classic theme. To me its better. The new theme especially on all my devices, which is Windows using Edge. Safari on Mac Book and FireFox on the Linux box in the office looks good. The iPhone whilst in a board displays the topics a bit blocky, but I can live with that I think.

I must give you a small example of forums that are similar if not identical to the classic theme here that I've listed below which are all highly popular:

HFU HF Underground - Index

HFU HF Underground - Index

hfunderground.com

EEVblog® Electronics Community Forum - Index

EEVblog® Electronics Community Forum - Index

eevblog.com

Pira.cz Technical Forum - Index

Pira.cz Technical Forum - Index

pira.cz

Ive not really scratched the surface with the list, But I don't wish to advertise other forums here in this support forum.

Admin -> Features and Options -> Layout
Disable Responsive Mode on Mobile


I am curious at what you do not like about the new theme. I think it is vastly superior than old theme in terms of looks/layout

I saw this the other day and wanted to get back to it now that I have a little more time.

I also prefer the original to the point that I have not even asked the members of my forum if they would like to switch. That is based entirely on functionality:

• "recent posts" - we post a lot in several threads, generally there are 3-4 topics that are active and being posted on at any time.

Seeing a few posts from one or two threads is not nearly as useful as having the "show unread since last visit" that allows you to hit the "new" button for the thread and jump back in to where you left off.

• The quote function in this theme makes the quoted words fairly tiny. A significant portion of my forum are members who are 50+. One of the main things that I had to do for my forum was to edit the style sheet to make the text size larger in the quoted portions, and change the colors so that they had enough contrast to be clearly delineated without being too much for the outer edges of people with eye sensitivities.

I am by no means an expert in CSS and I would not look forward to having to do that again.

I agree that the home page layout is better broken up, but for function, it does not beat the old one in terms of how we use it. Had this been the original layout when we transferred from another location 4+ years ago, we probably would have passed and kept looking for something else. Based entirely on the knowledge of what our community needed in terms of being able to keep up with ongoing conversations that were more than a few posts a day (I believe our post count averages somewhere around 250/day).

For the unread posts do you mean this option when you cluck the arrow by your username in the top

D'oh. I actually missed this was about the mobile layout and I was talking about the desktop/web browser layout.... 

<hangs head in shame>

Please ignore.

D'oh. I actually missed this was about the mobile layout and I was talking about the desktop/web browser layout....

<hangs head in shame>

Please ignore.

No worries either way it is in the same spot desktop team as well under your displayname top right.

Quote from: animaniactoo on November 15, 2025, 02:00:53 pm

D'oh. I actually missed this was about the mobile layout and I was talking about the desktop/web browser layout....

<hangs head in shame>

Please ignore.

No worries either way it is in the same spot desktop team as well under your displayname top right.

Good to know - but I would still have to dig into the CSS to increase the font size in the quotes. It's hard for *me* to read at points, and probably works better on mobile than on desktop.

Quote from: CreateAForum on November 16, 2025, 12:57:28 am

Quote from: animaniactoo on November 15, 2025, 02:00:53 pm

D'oh. I actually missed this was about the mobile layout and I was talking about the desktop/web browser layout....

<hangs head in shame>

Please ignore.

No worries either way it is in the same spot desktop team as well under your displayname top right.

Good to know - but I would still have to dig into the CSS to increase the font size in the quotes. It's hard for *me* to read at points, and probably works better on mobile than on desktop.

I just wanted to check and see that it is possible to customize this and change the font size for the quotes in the CSS?

We are looking at trialing it for our forum and it is the one thing that I know will be a sticking point (because I had to change it in the current CSS for people to be comfortable with it)

The CSS classes used are quoteheader  bbc_standard_quote and topslice_quote

I changed the quote/code/bbc size on the CAF2 template see if this helps @animaniactoo @agate