Add-On Releases - Mobile Device Style Assignment

This is my first released hack, be nice.

This hack will detect when a mobile device connects to your site and allow you to override the default style/skin with one you specify.

Just install the product-file and set which style is your mobile device style via the AdminCP. Has been tested with several 3.6.x versions up to 3.6.8

I am also releasing a skin I wrote (it is based on vbmechanics Alabama skin, so updated or modified would be a more accurate description) for my own needs - it could probably be tidied up a lot more, but it works for me - take it as it is, I may offer limited support for this skin if I get time (no promises), and feel free to offer suggestions. Mobi - My super light skin is probably the one to go for, it has much greater functionailty.

=Install Instructions=
Go to Plugin System, Manage Products in your AdminCP and click Add/Import Product link at the end of the page
Browse for the product-mobile_enabled36-x.x.x.xml product file and click 'import'
Refresh your admincp page and in VBulletin Options, select the settings for 'Mobile Device Detection'
Change the styleid of your mobile skin in "Mobile Device Style" to the StyleID number of your mobile device skin
Change the styleid of your PDA skin in "PDA Device Style" to the StyleID number of your PDA device skin
Your mobile/pda skin must be user selectable (although you can disbale the ability for users to change styles in vBulletin Options)
Thats it!

=Upgrade Instructions=
Go to Plugin System, Manage Products in your AdminCP and click Add/Import Product link at the end of the page
Browse for the product-mobile_enabled36-x.x.x.xml product file
Choose to overwrite
Click 'import'
Re-configure Styleid of mobile/pda skin if required

VERSION 1.0.7a
Based on initial release - supports assigning one alternative style to ALL detected mobile devices

VERSION 2.1.2
Now allows the addition of exceptions and also specifying a skin for Pocket PCs (Windows CE devices) and a skin for all otehr detected mobile devices.
I've also released a very light skin HERE which is great for cell/Mobile phones

LAST UPDATE 22-October 2007
VERSION 2.1.3 - removed, small bug
VERSION 2.1.3a

• Added ability to assign different styles to IPods/iPhones (In addiotn to Windows CE devices and other detected mobile devices
• Added ability to assign specific style to a user defined device (based on user agent string).
  
  You will need to know the useragent string, or a unique fragment of the user agent string to do this. One exmple of how this can be used would be to assign a specific style to say Firefox users, perhaps a different style for Blackberry users, or you could assign a specific style to search engines (beware when doing this - google apprently doesn't like people displying different content to search engines)
  

To upgrade, simply overwrite product - your existing settings should be preserved.

I've left the previous version available for download - to get the new version, download and install the attached XML

**BACKUP YOUR DB BEFORE INSTALLING**

Other Mobile / Lite Skins:

Mobile - My super light skin
iPhone / iPod Touch Optimised Style
Alabama
VBLite
WAP Plugin - this is a similar product and skin which I didn't find till after I'd made this one - it seems to be more directed at WAP devices as opposed to all Mobile Devices, and appears to no longer be supported, but worth having a look at.


Remember to click install and give a rating :up:

keywords: Mobile, PDA, Autodetect, Autoselect, WAP, Skin, portal, cell, phone, iphone

3.7 Version Here

[subnet_rx]

How can you tell if this is working if you don't have a data plan on your phone?

[MotoUp]

Post your link and I'll check it out for you.

[brvheart]

I can check as well...

[aggiefan]

i made my own theme customized for a smartphone and would release it but i have no idea how to export it.... i did alot of hacking to keep it looking as much like my forums as possible on a 320x240 screen.

http://www.aggiefans.com/forums if you want to test it.

Also is there a way to get your script to work with vbadvanced? I would like to detect browsers and kick them into the forums directly (dont want to mess with writing a vbadvanced theme since it wont be that useful for us to have that info available on a phone)

[dartho]

Wow! That is a VERY neat skin!

To export, go into "Download / Upload Styles" in the "Styles & Templates" section in your admincp. THen pick the style name from the first drop down and download.

In regards to vbadvanced, all I did for my site was to only dispaly the centre vBadvanced column - just edit teh adv_portal template and remove the
"<if condition="$show['left_column']">" block and the "<if condition="$show['right_column']">" If you just want to go straight to your forums, you could clear out the whole adv_portal template and just have a redirect to the Forum page

[Andres Kello]

Hi Dartho,

Great Mod, thanks a lot for this, it saved me from having to switch to SMF.

Is there any chance you could make it fully 5/5 mobile compliant like SMF? Right now it scores about a 2/5 or fails altogether.

Check out Ready.mobi to see what I mean.

Big thanks!
Andres

[tekguru]

aggiefan - that is an awesome skin indeed, maybe you and Dartho need to work together to produce the A1 skin we all crave

[tekguru]

Dartho - what is your site BTW?

[dartho]

Hi Andres,
I possibly could start from scratch and come up with a more mobile compatible skin in a similar vein to SMF (which by the way would definately the forum software I'd use for a free forum only based site - almost wen t with it myself) but it wouldn;t happen soon. The skin I released with this hack came about from modifying the Alabama skin which vbMechanic wrote. On my small site I am one of only a couple users that access it with a PDA (rather than mobile phone) so the need to make it 100% compliant hasn;t really been there.

Aggiefans site seems to disaply well on on the http://ready.mobi site - He's obviously put a lot of work into it - I'd like to get my hands on it!

As I get time I'll have a go at a skin similar to SMF.

tekguru - I've updated my profile with my sites address - http://thewholeforce.com - it's a Rugby supporters site for the Western Australian Super14 rugby team "Western Force"

[MotoUp]

Aggiefan's looks great, however the problem I have with it is that it loads a lot slower. I'm not so keen on all the separation (could possibly be my Blackberry). For instance, on the first line, you see forum name, next, posts, next, views, next line icon.

So it creates a lot of scrolling.

I have to say I really like your theme dartho. It's nice and simple, yet gives plenty of options, even with me being the owner and admin of my site. Yeah, there's a few things I can't do, but I can manage quite a bit.

For whatever it's worth, there's my $.02