Hi Dave, On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 3:04 AM, Dave Olsen <[email protected]> wrote: > Bertrand wrote on May 31: >> I've just committed a prototype using a "dynamic probes" technique...
> My one big question related to this technique is how do you plan to > definitively link UA (e.g. a *browser*) to a particular device?... Good question - I think you are right that we are indeed detecting *browser* capabilities as opposed to *device* capabilities. Which is fine for my use cases. I'd be happy with having many browsers identified based on the result of probing them in javascript, and having some of them mapped to device definitions that could include more details. > ...solutions. I envisioned a solution where all of the UA profiles > sourced with Detector [1] could be put into a GitHub repo and people > could put in pull requests and pull data whenever they wanted... That's very useful, and IMO doesn't prevent people to further linking that info to devices where that makes sense. > ...Maybe I > just didn't know enough but I quickly gave up with device-detection > or, rather, trying to organize by device and moved to calling what I > was doing simply browser- and feature-detection and organizing by > unique UA. Lots of overlap but less thinking on my part ;)... Sounds good to me! > > As an example of where I think their may be a disconnect between > device- and browser-detection is a complaint someone sent to me about > their Detector profile. One of the features I test for is touch event > support. The commenter noted that their N9 was a touch device but I > was reporting it as false. I had to point out that there's a > difference between touch as input on a device and touch as the browser > sees it and can act on it. As a developer I'm more worried about the > latter than the former.... Yes, agree with that. > > Is there a relatively easy way to link UA to device? Or does this > technique point towards a more generic, browser map as opposed to a > device map?... My first goal would be to get a browser map, and leave the door open for linking that to devices when/if that happens. I think we're on the same wavelength here (though this project's name might not be fully representative then ;-) -Bertrand
