Using Kabora on Your Phone

Two Ways to Use Kabora on a Phone

• The Kabora app for iPhone: The app is in TestFlight, not yet on the App Store. It runs your hosting from Home, Calendar, Listings, Messages and Menu, with push notifications. When a tab opens, a button reading Switch to traveling shows for ten seconds above the tab bar; pressing it turns the whole app over to the traveling side, where you book stays of your own. On that side the same button reads Switch to hosting and turns it back. Pulling right past Home, or left past Profile, does the same.
• kabora.app in a phone browser: Works in any phone browser, with the same sign-in and the same data, laid out for a smaller screen. Your browser's "Add to Home Screen" puts it one tap away, like any bookmark.

The rest of this article is about the website.

Screens Built for a Phone

• Calendar: Multi is the same board as on a laptop, every listing by day, sized for the screen and scrolling inside itself. List and Single show one listing a month at a time. Tap a night to open it, and tap a booking to open the reservation. A bar marked 2 waiting (or however many) opens the requests waiting on those nights.
• Reservations: The list becomes cards instead of a table. Each card leads with the listing photo, then the guest, the dates, who is coming, and what you net. Tap a card to open the reservation.
• Messages: The inbox and each conversation are built for a narrow screen, and replying takes the same few taps as anywhere else.
• Booking requests: The Booking requests panel and its Approve buttons work on a phone, so a request need not wait for a desk.
• Notifications: The bell's full list (See all) becomes cards rather than columns. Each card shows what happened, the reservation code and the time. Accept and Decline are full-size buttons on the requests that have them, doing the same work as on a laptop, and ✕ clears a card.

Screens Better Suited to a Laptop

• Wide screens: Owner statements, the audit trail, scheduled sends, sign-in history and API keys are wide by nature. On a phone, they keep their full width and scroll sideways inside their own card instead of truncating. They are readable, but reconciling a statement is better on a bigger screen.
• Bulk editing on the multicalendar: Dragging across a range of nights assumes a pointer; on a phone, use the per-night editor.
• Calendar links: Adding a calendar link works properly on a phone. The nickname and the Shows as menu stack rather than compressing, and the menu's options carry their logos at full size.
• Adding several listings in one paste: The screen lays out properly on a phone and the cards stack. The task itself does not suit a phone, because you copy from a browser tab per listing, an evening's work on a laptop.
• Importing from Hospitable: Connecting Hospitable under Settings → Import works well from a phone, as does reading what it brings across.

Larger Text in the App

The Kabora app follows your iPhone's text size, under Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size → Larger Text, up to the largest sizes. The words in the tab bar, the search bar and the filter pills stop growing slightly sooner, so they remain whole. Everything else continues to grow. A long title ends in "…" rather than pushing a button off the screen. If you change the size while the app is open, it lays itself out again.

The App on an iPad or an Opened iPhone Duo

On a screen at least 600 points wide, the app's tabs stand as a rail down the left edge, and two panes stand side by side where both fit: search results beside the map, a trip or a stay beside its conversation, Messages beside the open conversation, and a listing beside its booking card. Folding an iPhone Duo keeps an open conversation open.

Updating the App

The app never stops you to install an update unless your version is too old to work with Kabora. In that case it shows Time for an update, with a way to continue on kabora.app in the meantime. Once the app is on the App Store, Explore shows a card when a newer version is ready, A new version of Kabora is ready., with Update and Not now. Not now hides it until the next version. While the app is in TestFlight, TestFlight itself offers new versions.

What Kabora Does Not Do on a Phone

• Push from the website: The website sends no push notifications, only email, and the bell holds the rest. The Kabora app pushes what you choose under its Menu → Settings → Notifications.
• Offline use of the website: The website requires a connection for everything, and a change made after the signal drops is not saved. The app keeps a message written without signal and sends it the next time you open that conversation or send another. Everything else in the app also requires a connection.
• App Store and Android: The store badges in the footer read Coming soon until the app passes review. There is no Android app yet.