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I use x theme for my main business website. It is offers a great responsive experience for our customers regardless of how they access – desktop, tablet, smartphone.
I’d like to take advantage of the responsive capability of x theme to create a special version of our site to be used by our sales team in the field on tablets (iPads). This version would have sales specific features and need to look and function more like a web app.
X theme’s core features should work for most of what I have in mind, but I need to be able to add a button to the home screen of the mobile device (iOS required, Android optional) and once added to the home screen I need to get x theme to run in full screen mode in Safari from the start – not just after scrolling.
I already have site that meets these requirements running in web app mode using a different theme (Bean), but I’d like to use x theme for Version 2 to get everything running in the same environment for me and provide a consistent UX for my sales team.
I’ve found some plugins that add a button to home screen, but they haven’t been updated in over a year and don’t appear to work in WP 4.x. I’ve also found plugins that offer a mobile app environment, but they rely on their own themes that are not as nice or feature rich as x theme.
Any suggestions?
Hello Tristan,
Thanks for posting in. We can add a button that is only visible to mobile screen. Can you clarify what you meant by full screen web app. If you wouldn’t mind providing us with a little more clarification on what it is you’re wanting to do (a link to a similar example site would be very helpful, or perhaps some screenshots), we’ll be happy to provide you with a response once we have a better understanding of the situation.
My company has a main website that is customer facing. I created this site using X Theme.
https://www.primecaplending.com
We also have a secondary website that is intended for use by our sales personnel. They access it using iPads to present product options to customers in person.
https://app.primecaplending.com
It was created using a WordPress theme called Bean. It includes two key features for making a Responsive website behave like a web app:
1. It displays a message the on mobile devices (tablets, smartphones) that invites visitors to add a bookmark “button” to their home screen as a shortcut for future visits.
2. It enables the website to appear in full screen mode in the browser, hiding the browser in the background.
The first item can be done with a work-around by using the standard add-to-homescreen feature in Safari on iOS devices. However, it results in a generic button. It is better user experience to deliver a custom button that reflects the proper branding.
The second item is to make the website appear more or less the same as an actual iOS or Android app – both of which do not show browsers.
I’ve used X Theme for two sites so far and would really like to use it for the new version of our web app. Having one or both of these features would really make doing so a no-brainer.
It would also make the theme even more attractive to other users targeting mobile devices – and who isn’t these days?
Hi there,
X theme is responsive which is both applicable for desktop and mobile. As there is no need to get another site to represent the mobile version. It simply resize according to device width.
Though, if your mobile application has different functionality or different purpose than its desktop counterpart. Then it’s only recommended to use another site/theme to represent your mobile app. But, if they are basically the same, then you can just use X theme for both desktop and mobile.
Though, the functionality you mentioned are not available for X theme but still doable with custom development. You may consult it to a developer for proper estimate (eg. time, what’s need to be done, work load). I can’t provide any recommendation as I’m not really sure what features and how your mobile features works. But in a general idea, yes, X theme should work okay as web app’s theme.
Thanks!
