General

The Big Bob theme is not a theme that tries to lock down website content creation. There are very few restrictions on the size and volume of images and videos that you can add to any page. Consequently, it is easy to create a page that almost any browser would find difficult to run, but if you follow a few intuitive rules, your websites should be able to run on most browsers most of the time:

1. Don’t make your pages bigger than they need to be. This is a good practice when building almost any site. The bigger a page is, the longer it takes to load. Even a long one page site needs to follow this policy by using AJAX (meaning the whole page doesn’t load at once).
2. If you are blogging, keep your post page’s post limit modest. I like to keep my post page list to at least three posts or fewer.
3. Your longest page on your site should be no longer than what is absolutely necessary to discuss one subject. If you can intuitively break up one page into two then do it. More pages doesn’t just make things easier to load, it makes it easier for your users to find information. And if what you need to say is unusually long, then consider using WordPress’s page break feature to break up your writing into multiple pages. Please note that if you choose this option, if you choose to use a featured video, then you will need to reference it within each page.

Images

I’ve worked hard to make it so that my users can implement images with far more reckless abandon then they are used to. I’ve never liked images that rely on image distortion to fit the image into different spaces. I prefer to leave the image as the photographer intended to the maximum extent feasible. Here are the Big Bob theme’s rules for images:

1. You do NOT need to cut your image to fit it into a given screen space. Featured images and header images will resize according to the window size that they are loaded onto and the background image or background color will fill in the negative space. Standard horizontal, vertical, and square images can be implemented in their original form. Logos are the only images with height restrictions.
2. Total picture size and volume still matters. Just like on any site, if you put too many images on one page, it will have trouble loading, and the larger the file sizes, the fewer the number of images you will need to instigate problems.

Video

Videos have the highest potential for having difficulty loading. Mobile technology is advancing and continues to advance, but you can only push things so far. My rule of thumb is simple. I have an unremarkable phone that supports unremarkable browsers. If I can view all the pages of my site on all my browsers, then I run the page as is. I know some browsers still won’t support everything, but I just don’t worry about it. However, you might not like this philosophy, so here are some rules you can use:

1. If you like using videos, but you don’t like the way they respond on mobile technology, then the safest thing to do is use the tools that the Big Bob theme provides to turn off your header videos and features videos on small screens and replace them with images. You can also choose to turn off some videos and leave on others.
2. A good rule of thumb is to keep all your videos under 8 MB. WordPress actually requires this for your header videos.
3. If you want to run your videos on mobile technology, but you still feel uncertain, then test your videos. The only way to get an accurate analysis is to launch the video on your server, then open it with a mobile browser. Keep it mind that this can be tricky and tedious because the various layers of caching may require you to wait over 24 hours to do a true page refresh. If the video plays, you should be good to go; but if it doesn’t play, then make sure to check the browser settings to be sure autoplay hasn’t been turned off. Video plays remarkably well on mobile applications these days, and it only looks like things are going to keep getting better, and you’ll probably reach a point where you won’t feel like you have to test everything, but there are no guarantees.
4. Don’t run too many videos on the page at once, and avoid using videos that have large file sizes. If you use a video over 8 MB, then you’ll probably want to set an image in its place on smaller screens.

Mobile

The Big Bob theme was built to adapt to whatever browser it is run on, but that means that the theme is also limited by its browser. It is inevitable that some browser experiences will be preferable to others. In particular, the mobile browser you use will probably make subtle screen manipulations to compensate for the small screen space and the disappearing/reappearing address bar. Here are some different experiences you should expect that are each unique to different mobile browsers:

1. The fixed background image is turned off so that it scrolls with the screen.
2. The bottom of the screen is cut off. However, once you scroll up, the address bar disappears and everything on the screen is revealed.
3. The main background image adjusts to the change in screen size as the address bar disappears and reappears.

These experiences tend not to inhibit the general enjoyment of the Big Bob experience, and you shouldn’t assume that there is anything wrong. All that is happening is the theme is adapting to the browser and the screen space it is using. The most noticeable inconsistencies tend to arise from the main background image. Keep in mind that you can turn off the main background image while utilizing a copy that sits in the featured image position.