I made a special store front for a mobile version of my site. How to redirect mobile devices there and also link back to the desktop site?

Question

I've setup a special mobile store/store front under a subdomain - www.m.mydomain.com according to this tutorial.

I was going to put this code in the Miscellaneous scripts to make the system detect that a customer is connecting from a mobile device and forward the traffic to www.m.mydomain.com:

I have a special responsive mobile store at m.MYdomain.com - how to make Magento detect mobile devices and forward the traffic to m.Mydomain.com?

But now I'm thinking a better solution might just be through changing the .htaccess file as explained here.

But I don't understand where to put that code into? Also - that post is from 2010. Is there something newer to go with given the development in the mobile devices and tablets?

I also need to place a large button on the mobile site (at www.m.mydomain.com ) that would re-direct customers to the desktop version of the site (www.mydomain.com) if they choose to. What is the best way to do that?

I mean - How can this work? Will it not be stuck in a loop? When the customer clicks the button that will send it to www.mydomain.com, won't the script once again detect that it is a mobile device and transfer the traffic back to www.m.mydomain.com ? I read about doing it with cookies but how exactly? And how would I set that button up?

I am looking for a simple solution as in: take this code and put it here. Change this code here and you are done! :o)

In my example my desktop site is: www.mydomain.com and my mobile is at: www.m.mydomain.com while my desktop store name and store front name is: mydomain.com and my mobile store name and store front name is: mmydomaincom

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Updated December 12th:

Please don't tell me to load a different theme. I already have a nice responsive theme! This is not the problem. The reason I want to redirect to my mobile site (located at www.m.mysite.com) is that I have around 50 products on my desktop front page and a lot of things (such as text put on there by the SEO company) that are just taking up space and I don't need to display that clutter on mobile devices. I think that ordering on a mobile device should be fast and easy without unnecessary junk. That said - I am not trying to reinvent the wheel here. I need 2 things.

1. Detect the mobile device and if that is so - load www.m.mysite.com instead of www.mysite.com

2. Add a button for people who for whatever reason (maybe they are connected to a fast wifi connection) decide they want the desktop version instead and make it work when they click it to display www.mysite.com

If you go to www.ebay.com on your mobile phone - it redirects to "m.ebay.com" Same with YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn...So don't tell me this is an old age approach. If these multi-billion dollar companies are doing it - it has some logic behind it....

Answer 1

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3680463/mobile-redirect-using-htaccess

http://wpandsuch.com/redirect-to-a-mobile-site-with-htaccess-and-set-a-cookie-to-break-redirect/

Magento Redirect to mobile website when on Smart Devices

https://github.com/LimeSoda/LimeSoda_MobileRedirect

https://github.com/sebarmeli/JS-Redirection-Mobile-Site

https://github.com/vkathirvel/Magento-Extension-MobileDetect

http://mobiledetect.net/

Multi store magento redirects to main store

https://www.cloudways.com/blog/create-and-configure-multistore-magento-2/

Magento 2 with multiple domain names

This is the best article so far: https://www.forgeonline.co.nz/magento-multistore-website-shopfront/

U need to set Cookie & Flag then it will work out. U can also refer to Magento Default .htaccess which provides already

Answer 2

<?php

$useragent=$_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];

if(preg_match('/(android|bb\d+|meego).+mobile|avantgo|bada\/|blackberry|blazer|compal|elaine|fennec|hiptop|iemobile|ip(hone|od)|iris|kindle|lge |maemo|midp|mmp|netfront|opera m(ob|in)i|palm( os)?|phone|p(ixi|re)\/|plucker|pocket|psp|series(4|6)0|symbian|treo|up\.(browser|link)|vodafone|wap|windows (ce|phone)|xda|xiino/i',$useragent)||preg_match('/1207|6310|6590|3gso|4thp|50[1-6]i|770s|802s|a wa|abac|ac(er|oo|s\-)|ai(ko|rn)|al(av|ca|co)|amoi|an(ex|ny|yw)|aptu|ar(ch|go)|as(te|us)|attw|au(di|\-m|r |s )|avan|be(ck|ll|nq)|bi(lb|rd)|bl(ac|az)|br(e|v)w|bumb|bw\-(n|u)|c55\/|capi|ccwa|cdm\-|cell|chtm|cldc|cmd\-|co(mp|nd)|craw|da(it|ll|ng)|dbte|dc\-s|devi|dica|dmob|do(c|p)o|ds(12|\-d)|el(49|ai)|em(l2|ul)|er(ic|k0)|esl8|ez([4-7]0|os|wa|ze)|fetc|fly(\-|_)|g1 u|g560|gene|gf\-5|g\-mo|go(\.w|od)|gr(ad|un)|haie|hcit|hd\-(m|p|t)|hei\-|hi(pt|ta)|hp( i|ip)|hs\-c|ht(c(\-| |_|a|g|p|s|t)|tp)|hu(aw|tc)|i\-(20|go|ma)|i230|iac( |\-|\/)|ibro|idea|ig01|ikom|im1k|inno|ipaq|iris|ja(t|v)a|jbro|jemu|jigs|kddi|keji|kgt( |\/)|klon|kpt |kwc\-|kyo(c|k)|le(no|xi)|lg( g|\/(k|l|u)|50|54|\-[a-w])|libw|lynx|m1\-w|m3ga|m50\/|ma(te|ui|xo)|mc(01|21|ca)|m\-cr|me(rc|ri)|mi(o8|oa|ts)|mmef|mo(01|02|bi|de|do|t(\-| |o|v)|zz)|mt(50|p1|v )|mwbp|mywa|n10[0-2]|n20[2-3]|n30(0|2)|n50(0|2|5)|n7(0(0|1)|10)|ne((c|m)\-|on|tf|wf|wg|wt)|nok(6|i)|nzph|o2im|op(ti|wv)|oran|owg1|p800|pan(a|d|t)|pdxg|pg(13|\-([1-8]|c))|phil|pire|pl(ay|uc)|pn\-2|po(ck|rt|se)|prox|psio|pt\-g|qa\-a|qc(07|12|21|32|60|\-[2-7]|i\-)|qtek|r380|r600|raks|rim9|ro(ve|zo)|s55\/|sa(ge|ma|mm|ms|ny|va)|sc(01|h\-|oo|p\-)|sdk\/|se(c(\-|0|1)|47|mc|nd|ri)|sgh\-|shar|sie(\-|m)|sk\-0|sl(45|id)|sm(al|ar|b3|it|t5)|so(ft|ny)|sp(01|h\-|v\-|v )|sy(01|mb)|t2(18|50)|t6(00|10|18)|ta(gt|lk)|tcl\-|tdg\-|tel(i|m)|tim\-|t\-mo|to(pl|sh)|ts(70|m\-|m3|m5)|tx\-9|up(\.b|g1|si)|utst|v400|v750|veri|vi(rg|te)|vk(40|5[0-3]|\-v)|vm40|voda|vulc|vx(52|53|60|61|70|80|81|83|85|98)|w3c(\-| )|webc|whit|wi(g |nc|nw)|wmlb|wonu|x700|yas\-|your|zeto|zte\-/i',substr($useragent,0,4)))

header('Location: http://detectmobilebrowser.com/mobile');

?>

in header location you specify store url of mobile device

Answer 3

you should add exceptions for the mobile devices. Navigate to the Magento administrative area -> System -> Configuration -> Design -> Themes. Click on the Add Exceptions buttons beside the Templates, Skin and Layout labels.

And for the Matched exceptions add **iPhone|iPod|BlackBerry|Palm|Googlebot-Mobile|Mobile|mobile|mobi|Windows Mobile|Safari Mobile|Android|Opera Mini**

This solution assumes that you have a different custom theme for mobile store

Answer 4

First off, the link you provided is for setting up a multisite/multi store. For example, when you have a multi language site; it detects patterns in the domain name and sets the proper store code if set.

To answer your second question: The .htaccess code of 2010 should still work. Haven't tested it yet, but it's nothing more than checking the user-agent against a regular expression and nothing much has changed since then.

So you could use the second example to set the redirect. However, you want to be able to redirect back to the site, effectively ignoring the .htaccess-rule.

I think your best bet may be to not use the .htaccess-rule, but rather let Magento handle the redirect according to the user agent. See this article on how to set this up.

The second challenge you have then is to make Magento ignore this redirect if someone explicitly chooses the link on one of those mobile devices. I think you can best handle this by tracking down the code in Magento that handles the redirect and create a module that rewrites this code (or if you're lucky there's an event for that). In your module, you can then check if there's a flag in your URL (like ?noredirect or something), and add a flag to the user session so it never will trigger the redirect.

So no, there's not a 'one-line-solution' for what you're trying to achieve, but if you know how-to-Magento, it's not a very difficult task to setup.

But... why use a mobile site in the first place? Why not make your template responsive? Mobile redirects or so 2001...