Been looking at two plugins for Wordpress to bring the 3 Sheep commercial site to mobile devices:
Andy More - Wordpress Mobile Plugin
and
Alex King - Wordpress Mobile Edition.
They both pretty much do what they say on the tin and use server-side code to detect if a browser is on a mobile device (or claiming to be). If it is they send back a different Wordpress Theme for the content that is optimised for use on a mobile device.
Andy More is using advertising to help finance his work and whilst I have no objection, I found the adverts a bind and I was also concerned about what content might get thrown back at users. I felt my real estate on a mobile screen is too precious but More does allow you to choose where the adverts are. He also sells licences for his work. The actually tranistion seems to work fine though and even with the browser detection code it works fast. Additionally configuration is via the Wordpress admin screen, which is a nice touch.
Alex King’s work is very similar but it is advert free (except for a link back to him) and again is fast loading. However, it is does not have the attention to graphic design of More’s work.
Neither plugin worked ‘out of the box’ for me. I suspect this is because of the commercial site I have stripped Wordpress down to make a small content management system as opposed to blogging tool and both plugins had trouble with my menus. However, it is a straightforward fix for any Wordpress theme hacker.
In the end I have gone with King as it is advert free and simplier to use. I can also rework the style sheets to bring a greater graphical feeling to the site.
I have decided to keep the Blog on Wordpress hosting for now
So please feel free to visit the site www.3sheep.co.uk on your mobile and let me know what you think.
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- October 29th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
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