auto-redirect for PDAs
I have a pocket pc phone – and I noticed some time ago that Google auto redirects me (when I'm on my phone) to the pda version of the page.
Being a lover of all things scripty – I've been looking for a way to do that too… Not that I've had a huge request for it – but just for the cool/why-not factor.
Every now and then I'll search around for it – but I still haven't found anything conclusive. I did however, come across this link this morning. which had the following code:
<script>
if (navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Windows CE") != -1)
{window.location='mindex.php'}
</script>
Even on that link, the poster said that it only works with pocket pc.
If anyone else has any ideas – I'd love to hear them!
Some generic browser sniffing can be found here: moock, dynamic drive, codehouse, webreference (but none of those focus on PDAs)
(and it's a little weird that almost a year ago today I was thinking about browser sniffing too… history repeats itself, I guess)
update: Doc had the answer – see the comments of this post! 
March 16th, 2004 at 5:14 pm
Really. My life turned quite boring… My schedule turned upside down: Sleeping during the day, awake through the night. As a direct result I'm obviously not attending school as I should. I received my DMS3 modchip but when I saw…
March 16th, 2004 at 4:13 pm
Yes, that's a truly elegant solution (why do us, geeks, love that .htaccess file so much?
). However if you're webhost doesn't support .htaccess rewriting for whatever reason and you're using PHP pages here's a snippet of code that should work. You can include it at the begining of your pages BEFORE any output is generated otherwise it won't work.
<?
$pda_agents = Array('Windows CE', 'NetFront', 'Palm OS', 'Blazer', 'Elaine', 'WAP', 'Plucker', 'AvantGo');
$http_user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];
foreach($pda_agents as $pda_agent) {
$found = stristr($http_user_agent, $pda_agent);
if($found) header('Location: pda.php');
}
?>
(I shamelesly stole Doc's user agent signatures, please don't shoot me!
)
March 16th, 2004 at 1:08 pm
I actually use my .htaccess to accomplish this quite well. A while back I wrote an article on how I accomplished this: http://www.seadoc.net/sd/archives/individual/2003/03/20030315-htaccess_tricks_browser_sniffing.php
The system has been refined a little since then and if you would like my current code just e-mail me and I'll be happy to share.
Also you can look at this thread: http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=140485
for some other ideas and ways to accomplish this.
March 16th, 2004 at 2:13 pm
Since I got swamped with e-mails, I'll just post the most current PDA Browser code I am using here. Not really many changes, just cleaned up a little.
Remember, you must have Mod_ReWrite enabled and RewriteEngine ON listed at the top in your .htaccess for this code to work.
NOTE: If anyone has any other PDA UserAgents, Plese e-mail me so I can keep this code up to date.
#browser redirects For PDA Based Browsers
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "Windows CE" [NC,OR] #Windows CE and Pocket PC
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "NetFront" [NC,OR] #PalmSource WebBrowser 2.0
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "Palm OS" [NC,OR] #Eudora Web Browser for Palm
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "Blazer" [NC,OR] #Handspring Blazer Browser
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "Elaine" [NC,OR] #RIM Devices
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "^WAP.*$" [NC,OR] #WAP Browsers
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "Plucker" [NC,OR] #Plucker Offline download client
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "AvantGo" [NC] #AvantGo Service
RewriteRule ^index\.php http://www.yourdomain.net/pda.php [L,R]
March 16th, 2004 at 2:21 pm
Thanks Doc!! You rock!!
hey, that rhymes!
October 15th, 2004 at 11:30 am
Anyone know of a script that will redirect for wap phones please email me and let me know, Mike
June 2nd, 2005 at 1:42 am
These postings are probably a bit out of date. But for anyone else that might stumble across this like I did hereis some more info on mobile browser agent ids
Mobile ID's