Member Avatar for DrWhoFan

When I started to formally learn web programming, determining what browser was being used was a very complicated process as standards hadn't started being established. Most of the methods of doing this were based upon filtering the navigator.userAgent. (which is probably why even server-side languages gives you access to this informtion). Later, I became aware of another approach: object based detection.

Based upon the objects that I'm aware of, there are limits to this and eventually you have to fall back to agent parsing. Netscape / Firefox / Flock has objects that enable you to get closer to the actual release before resorting to agent parsing. I would like to know one of two things.

  1. Where can I find a comprensive list of all objects known to exist. (Any browser)
  2. Specific objects that would help me refine detection of IE based browsers and Opera.

In a related question, is there an object that can be checked, without spawning a popup directly, that will tell you that popups are being blocked. (If not, why haven't developers pushed to have such an object created).

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Member Avatar for ~s.o.s~

> If not, why haven't developers pushed to have such an object created

Pop-ups are a usability concern and are almost always handed by different browsers and specialized pop-up blockers in different ways. What would you gain from detecting whether pop-ups are blocked or not? If navigate the user to a separate page, then why not use the same technique instead of different flows for users. IMO, if a user don't want to see anything that involves pop-ups, any content which those pop-ups contain mean nothing.

> Specific objects that would help me refine detection of IE based browsers and Opera.

Your best bet would be to look at any of the existing popular Javascript frameworks since they make sure object detection to the highest degree is made possible so that the API calls can be as transparent as possible.

Member Avatar for DrWhoFan

I agree about the popups. Anything that would have gone into popups (advertisments) can now be put into divs.

My reason for asking is that I'd like to be able to get, from the user, more of the available screen area. With so many tool bars and sidebars out there, there is little space for content. I'm just trying to by pass the message the browser puts up on the screen.

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