Violinist.com is now more mobile-compatible

October 31, 2011, 3:40 PM · Good news, now you can participate in the discussion board and blogs from your mobile device!

In the words of Robert Niles, my husband and the technical wizard for Violinist.com, here is what we did to make the site more mobile-compatible: "Many of you might not even notice the switch, but we're back to using a 'plain text' window for discussion board input. That means that you'll have to use the HTML code for hyperlinks, images and YouTube embeds, if you wish to include those in your post. The input window will no longer automatically pick up text style and links pasted from Microsoft Word or other word processing programs.

As a result, you now should be able to post to the discussion board from iPhones, iPads and other smartphone devices, as well as from your computer."

The "plain text" windows are also in place for blogs.

If you created something back when we used the old editing system, you can still use that system if you need to change that post or blog.

The main reason we were using that system in the first place was to make it easier for you to post hyperlinks, images and video. So how do you do it now? You'll have to use a bit of HTML code, and here are some guidelines:

Hyperlinks: If you would like to include a link in your post, please use the HTML code for a hyperlink to the URL you wish to link. Here is an example: This is a link to Violinist.com

Images: If you would like to embed an image, please use the HTML code for images: (Please do not embed images more than 500 pixels wide.) You can upload and store your photos to any of a variety of services, including Photobucket, ImageShack.us, Flickr, or Webshots.

YouTube Embeds If you would like to embed a YouTube video, go to that video's YouTube page. Under the video, click "Share." A code will come up, highlighted, but that's not the code to use. Instead, click on "embed," and another code will come up. If it has a width of more than 560, go down to the blue box that says "custom" and type in 560 as the width. That will change the code to be the perfect size for Violinist.com. Then highlight the code, copy, and paste.

Thanks for your patience with these changes, and we hope they make Violinist.com more usable for you! Don't hesitate to e-mail me if you have any questions or need help with the new system.