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Currently we have the “Enable” / “Disable Responsiveness” and “Mobile” options in the bottom left corner of pages:

Responsiveness option

Why not put this in “Preferences” (“Settings” => “SITE SETTINGS” => “Preferences”)? Or at least have it there in addition to where it is today?

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It is somewhat counter-intuitive to have a setting that modifies layout be outside of “Preferences”, especially as other settings for the interface are there.

Responsiveness

After the responsiveness-rollout I got stuck with the non-responsive layout on one page (Unix & Linux) - all others were in the new mode. The new layout has a fixed width of minimum 1264px which is too wide for my taste, and results in horizontal scrolling if narrower. I have no idea when I clicked on the “Disable Responsiveness” and as there was no Responsiveness option in Preferences I had to start hunting. After meddling with cookies I got the responsive mode there as well.

Later I found where one could change it by searching forums for the cookie name no-responsiveness - but that is IMHO a somewhat long path for something that should be more user friendly. Again: have preferences in one place, not spread around.

Mobile view

As for mobile-view, I never use that, but that should be under preferences as well IMO. I tried to enable it while on the Settings page, but as that page does not have a mobile view the layout did not change and the link at the bottom of the page still says “Mobile”. First when navigating to a questions site the Mobile View kicks in and one gets a “Full site” option on the bottom of the page.

Now, if I had simply closed the page while being on the Settings page and then visited some SE site a couple of days later to find the “new layout”, I would likely have forgotten about clicking the “Mobile” link and thought something like “wow, another rollout. Are these UI designers on acid or something?” lol

As one can turn Mobile View on at for example the Settings page, this should also be reflected in the link at bottom by changing it to “full site”, and it's likely best to add it to the “Preferences” page as well.

As it is the de facto standard to put mobile/desktop view at the bottom of pages it's good to have it there as well of course, but - again - Preferences should reflect the viewing mode and give the options to switch to. It say Preferences => Interface, after all.

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    Well soon it won't be relevant, mobile theme is going away, and likely we won't be able to disable responsiveness too.
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Dec 16, 2021 at 7:16
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    @ShadowWizardIsVaccinatedV3 If that is the case that should be debated long and hard in meta with initiative from SE IMO. With a big banner campaign to draw attention. It is a community ruled platform after all (sarcasm lol).
    – user3342816
    Dec 16, 2021 at 9:39
  • haha........ no. (aka one day we'll just notice those links are gone.)
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Dec 16, 2021 at 11:36
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    Tagging this status-completed since the changes indicated below have been live for quite a while.
    – Glorfindel Mod
    Jun 21, 2022 at 16:29

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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When we wrap up deprecating the mobile views, both the mobile toggle and disabling responsive buttons will be going away.

At this point, timing’s sliding a bit into January 2022.

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