How can I have my app access the mobile version of Stack Exchange?

Question

I know about the "Mobile" link at the bottom of SE pages.

I want to make use of the mobile version of SE as part of an editor plugin I'm currently creating (don't ask which editor, I'm creating that too! lol).

However the mobile version doesn't seem to be working with a distinct URL.

So, how can it be accessed?

---

P.S. My guess: the culprit is a cookie setting theme to 2. Am I right? Is there no other simpler workaround to get the mobile version? That was it! Answer posted below. :-)

Answer 1

URL is actually {some_site}/mobile/on to go to the mobile page and {some_site}/mobile/off to go to the full page. But...

StackExchange.switchMobile = function(e) {
    $.post("/mobile/" + e, {
         "returnurl": window.location.href
    }, function(e) {
         window.location.href = e;
    });
}

...as you can see, they use post method. Earlier it was possible to switch between mobile / full, but since they started to use post method, it is not possible anymore.

So now you can use:

• StackExchange.switchMobile("on") to switch to mobile version and StackExchange.switchMobile("off") to switch to the full (this is how mobile link works)

• $.post("/mobile/on",function(){window.location.reload()}); to switch to mobile version and

  $.post("/mobile/off",function(){window.location.reload()});to switch to the full version

Answer 2

@nicael and @Shadow Wizard are right in their explanation. However, put simply I wanted to retrieve a search page (in its mobile version) with a single request, inside a Cocoa Webview (no post-processing, no js, no nothing).

---

So, I looked into the HTTP headers AFTER setting the mobile view. And noticed an interesting thing : When Mobile mode is on, we are packing a theme cookie with the value 2. (While, for the "Full Site" mode, theme is set to 0).

And that's how I came up to the following very simple code, in Objective-C/Cocoa :

- (void)mobileSearchSO:(NSString *)searchFor
{
    // Format the search path
    NSString* searchPath = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=%@",searchFor];
    NSURL* searchUrl = [[NSURL alloc] initWithString:searchPath];

    // Create the request
    NSMutableRequest* req = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:searchUrl];

    // Create the cookie
    NSHTTPCookie* cookie = [NSHTTPCookie cookieWithProperties:@{
        NSHTTPCookieDomain  : @"stackoverflow.com",
        NSHTTPCookiePath    : @"/",
        NSHTTPCookieName    : @"theme",
        NSHTTPCookieValue   : @"2"
    }];

    // Set the cookie
    [req setAllHTTPHeaderFields:[NSHTTPCookie requestHeaderFieldsWithCookies:@[cookie]]];

    // Load the request
    [[_webView mainFrame] loadRequest:req];
}

---

Tested and working fine. Enjoy! :-)