Description
Slim Mobile Theme Switcher is a developer-friendly, lightweight solution for sites that need a dedicated mobile experience without the overhead of a heavy mobile plugin. This plugin targets mobile handhelds, ensuring tablet users may still enjoy your full desktop-grade layout.
Key Features
- True Mobile Detection: Uses refined regex to separate small-screen phones from tablets (iPads/Android tablets).
- Manual Overrides: Allow users or testers to force a view using
?theme=handheldor?theme=active. - Persistent Choice: Option to remember a user’s manual theme choice for 30 days via cookies.
- No Bloat: Zero front-end CSS or JS added by the plugin itself.
- Developer Friendly: Built by a developer for developers.
How It Works
The plugin uses a precise, two-step detection process to ensure the best user experience:
1. Exclude Tablets: High-resolution devices (iPads, Android tablets, Kindle Fire) are served the Desktop Theme to take advantage of their screen size.
2. Detect Phones: Handheld mobile devices (iPhone, Android Mobile) are served the Mobile Theme.
3. Manual Choice: If a user manually switches via URL, their choice is honored for 30 days via cookies.
Screenshots
The settings page where you can choose your mobile and desktop themes.
Installation
- Upload the
slim-mobile-theme-switcherfolder to the/wp-content/plugins/directory. - Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
- Go to Settings > Mobile Theme Switcher to select your mobile and desktop themes.
FAQ
-
How do I add a “View Full Site” link?
-
You can add a link to your mobile theme’s footer:
<a href="?theme=active">View Full Site</a> -
What should I configure in my caching plugin?
-
For best results, exclude the
themequery parameter from your cache. If your host supports it, enable “Vary by User-Agent” or “Mobile Caching”. -
Why isn’t my theme switching?
-
The most common cause is Page Caching. If your host (like WP Engine or Kinsta) or a plugin (like WP Rocket) caches the desktop version of a page, it may serve that cached HTML to mobile users regardless of this plugin. Please ensure “Mobile Caching” or “User-Agent Vary” is enabled in your caching setup.
-
Does this work with tablets?
-
By default, tablets (iPads, etc.) are served the Desktop Theme. This is a deliberate design choice to ensure high-resolution tablet screens receive the most robust version of your site.
-
How do I link to the mobile version manually?
-
Simply add
?theme=handheldto any URL on your site. To go back to the default/desktop view, use?theme=active.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“Slim Mobile Theme Switcher” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “Slim Mobile Theme Switcher” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.0.0
- Initial release.