I am not a fan of user agent sniffing. I think it is a wholly inappropriate way to find out the capabilities of a user agent accessing your website.
However, it has its uses. Steve Souders built UA Profiler, for gathering browser performance characteristics. This is undoubtedly an important and intriguing project. In order to detect which browser you are using, he has written his own user agent sniffing code as he describes in his latest blog post.
He also offers to make this code available through a web service. This is an intriguing possibility. My first reaction was to think that this was an excellent move. A high quality user agent sniffer, improved upon by the community and its breadth of use that we could all access via a web service meaning we would not have to ask our users to download the code to do the detection.
Having calmed down slightly, I started to think more clearly. Overall, I am not convinced this is the best idea. Generally I feel that detecting a user agent from its user agent string is dangerous. This makes the assumption that no user agent spoofing is taking place, that your detection is granular and perfect enough and that browser features and support will not change. None of these are necessarily true.
I prefer to use feature detection. If I want to know whether the browser I am using is capable of applying a particular method, does that method exist?
The only reliable way I have found to detect a browser is for Internet Explorer only using conditional comments, both in HTML (useful for including CSS and JavaScript files for specific versions of IE) and in the JavaScript itself.
I notice that the latest version of jQuery (1.3) is deprecating its user agent sniffing. This decision is to be applauded.
I also realised that the next version of JSquared will actually add the ability to determine if the browser you are using is IE and if it is version 6 or another version. Whilst I might be adding a limited set of user agent support to my library, I am trying to do it in a fail-safe way.
20 January 2009
7 January 2009
Using CSS3
Despite ones personal feelings about it, I am really keen to start using CSS3. There are a number of browsers with support for some of the interesting parts of CSS3 and I think there is a new opportunity to use our skills of progressive enhancement to create some really exciting new effects.
If we wisely apply the appropriate properties, we can enhance the user experience for some users - and an increasing number of users - whilst offering a more than acceptable experience for the remainder of our users.
There may be a useful side effect here as well. When people see a site enhanced by the latest web browsers, we may get more users switching from older and less standards compliant browsers to the more modern and better newer browsers.
We may have to use vendor specific prefixes to get some effects to work, but I think that is a small price to pay to help push forwards the use of the good parts of CSS3.
The best part of all this is that as new browsers are released and used, our websites will look better and a good level of support is on the horizon. Safari 3 already has a good level of support, IE8 will have some and Firefox 3.1 will have a good level of support. With Safari having decent support for CSS3, it means all modern Webkit browsers should as well - read Chrome and the iPhone browser in particular!
So which properties might be able to be used in this way? Here are a few select ones that I think could be useful:
box-shadow
With this effect, we can create drop shadows around boxes. When this property is not understood, there is no detrimental effect and when it is recognised, a nice enhancement can be achieved.
border-radius
This effect allows us to create rounded corners using only CSS. I think this is useful as its simpler than any other technique and support can be achieved for IE by using conditional comments to include other stylesheets. Firefox 3 and Safari 3 already have support for this property - definitely one of the most useful to start implementing.
text-shadow
Similar to box-shadow, this effect will create a drop shadow effect around text. Another nice enhancement. Not strictly a new addition in CSS3, but support seems to be coming with CSS3 support.
There are other interesting effects coming, but I think these are the most potentially useful when applied using the principles of progressive enhancement. There are also a couple of useful new selectors coming, but its hard to see how one could use them with the principles of progressive enhancement.
I am excited about some of the new features of CSS3 and its great to be able to start using some. Indeed, the new JSquared website will feature some new CSS3 effects applied in this way.
What we do need to be cautious of though is creating a complete maintenance headache. Lets start using new features, but sparingly at first. We dont want to make development even harder with yet another class of browser to support.
If we wisely apply the appropriate properties, we can enhance the user experience for some users - and an increasing number of users - whilst offering a more than acceptable experience for the remainder of our users.
There may be a useful side effect here as well. When people see a site enhanced by the latest web browsers, we may get more users switching from older and less standards compliant browsers to the more modern and better newer browsers.
We may have to use vendor specific prefixes to get some effects to work, but I think that is a small price to pay to help push forwards the use of the good parts of CSS3.
The best part of all this is that as new browsers are released and used, our websites will look better and a good level of support is on the horizon. Safari 3 already has a good level of support, IE8 will have some and Firefox 3.1 will have a good level of support. With Safari having decent support for CSS3, it means all modern Webkit browsers should as well - read Chrome and the iPhone browser in particular!
So which properties might be able to be used in this way? Here are a few select ones that I think could be useful:
box-shadow
With this effect, we can create drop shadows around boxes. When this property is not understood, there is no detrimental effect and when it is recognised, a nice enhancement can be achieved.
border-radius
This effect allows us to create rounded corners using only CSS. I think this is useful as its simpler than any other technique and support can be achieved for IE by using conditional comments to include other stylesheets. Firefox 3 and Safari 3 already have support for this property - definitely one of the most useful to start implementing.
text-shadow
Similar to box-shadow, this effect will create a drop shadow effect around text. Another nice enhancement. Not strictly a new addition in CSS3, but support seems to be coming with CSS3 support.
There are other interesting effects coming, but I think these are the most potentially useful when applied using the principles of progressive enhancement. There are also a couple of useful new selectors coming, but its hard to see how one could use them with the principles of progressive enhancement.
I am excited about some of the new features of CSS3 and its great to be able to start using some. Indeed, the new JSquared website will feature some new CSS3 effects applied in this way.
What we do need to be cautious of though is creating a complete maintenance headache. Lets start using new features, but sparingly at first. We dont want to make development even harder with yet another class of browser to support.
Happy new year
I wish you all a (slightly) belated happy new year.
2008 was a tough but amazing year. Some of its highlights for me included getting married, having an amazing honeymoon and having 3 different jobs!
Some of the less good parts included having 3 different jobs! I am working harder than ever now at home and at work and have had much less time in the last 6 months to blog or work on JSquared than I would have liked.
But things can change for 2009 and so I hope to only have 1 job this year, not get married again (as amazing as that was) and give a bit more time to blogging here.
As you can see on the JSquared blog, work has resumed on the project after a period of quiet and I have a new team member on board to make the project even better and an even bigger success.
This is hardly going to be a quiet year though as I hope to move house - here's hoping Mrs N and myself can find the right place!
I hope you all have a happy, healthy and successful year and keep reading....
2008 was a tough but amazing year. Some of its highlights for me included getting married, having an amazing honeymoon and having 3 different jobs!
Some of the less good parts included having 3 different jobs! I am working harder than ever now at home and at work and have had much less time in the last 6 months to blog or work on JSquared than I would have liked.
But things can change for 2009 and so I hope to only have 1 job this year, not get married again (as amazing as that was) and give a bit more time to blogging here.
As you can see on the JSquared blog, work has resumed on the project after a period of quiet and I have a new team member on board to make the project even better and an even bigger success.
This is hardly going to be a quiet year though as I hope to move house - here's hoping Mrs N and myself can find the right place!
I hope you all have a happy, healthy and successful year and keep reading....
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