How can I redirect mobile users to diff url, but also allow them to come back to full site

Question

this is pretty straight forward: How do I redirect mobile users to /mobile, but still allow them to click a "Full site" button and see the full site without being redirected again back to the mobile site?

I have played with a bunch of the plugins that say they do this, but none seem to handle the second step. They redirect to the /mobile . but if a user wants to go to the full site, it tries then redirects back to mobile.

I am running WP3.0.1

Answer 1

function mobile_redirect() {
    if (isset($_COOKIE["redirected"]) && $_COOKIE["redirected"])
        return;
    global $is_iphone;
    if( isset($is_iphone) && $is_iphone ) {
        wp_redirect( '/mobile/' );
        setcookie("redirected", true);
        exit;
    }
}
add_action('init', 'mobile_redirect');

This code redirects every mobile visitor to /mobile/ and then sets a cookie that the user is redirected. If the cookie is set, then the redirect doesn't take place. So if the user again goes to your site it won't redirect to the mobile url.

You can also set the cookie if there is a variable in the url, like /?v=desktop, then if that url is visited it sets the cookie and doesn't redirect anymore.

---

UPDATE

Use of builtin $is_iphone variable; Thx to Kaiser.

Btw: strange name for a variable that's used for every mobile device. $is_mobile would be a better name.

Answer 2

I agree with Shaun. If you design your current theme well, you can just make it so that mobile devices use a different stylesheet. So basically you'll only need one theme, just two different style variants.

Example code used for changing stylesheets based on desktop or mobile device site access:

// Function in functions.php file

function is_mobile_device(){
    $device = '';

    if( stristr($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'],'ipad') ) {
        $device = "ipad";
    } else if( stristr($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'],'iphone') || strstr($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'],'iphone') ) {
        $device = "iphone";
    } else if( stristr($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'],'blackberry') ) {
        $device = "blackberry";
    } else if( stristr($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'],'android') ) {
        $device = "android";
    }

    if( $device ) {
        return true; 
    } return false; {
        return false;
    }
}

 // Code in header.php

<?php if (is_mobile_device()) { 
      echo 'MOBILE STYLESHEET' 
   } else {
      echo 'DESKTOP STYLESHEET' }
?>

Answer 3

I'm using Obox Mobile on my website (http://clickwp.com) and it works really well even with W3 Total Cache. You can switch to the full site with no problem.

Although I agree that a responsive theme is probably the best way to go if you're looking for an easy solution. As you can see from my site, the sideshow gallery doesn't scale. A well-built responsive theme would take these into consideration as its not relying on a 3rd party plugin to provide the mobile functionality.

That being said, Obox Mobile is a good solution for me until I have the time and money to make my site responsive. Please use my affiliate link if you want to buy it, thanks!

http://www.obox-design.com/premium-wordpress-themes.cfm?afId=DB7FA9B3&bannerId=40

Answer 4

Check the $is_iphone; variable. Then do your own redirects.