Detector

NOTE: Given that Detector no longer appears to work in newer versions of PHP, there's probably not much point in maintaining this. Sorry for this.

This module supports the inclusion of Dave Olsen's Detector library in
Drupal, and allows Drupal to use the provided $ua variable to detect browser
capabilities.

https://github.com/dmolsen/Detector
http://detector.dmolsen.com/

This module was developed by Geoffrey Roberts at
Cross(Functional).

Introduction

Detector is a simple, PHP- and JavaScript-based browser- and
feature-detection library that can adapt to new devices & browsers on its own
without the need to pull from a central database of browser information.

Detector dynamically creates profiles using a browser’s (mainly) unique
user-agent string as a key. Using Modernizr it records the HTML5 & CSS3
features a requesting browser may or may not support. ua-parser-php is used
to collect and record any useful information (like OS or device name) the
user-agent string may contain.

With Detector a developer can serve the appropriate markup, stylesheets,
and JavaScript to a requesting browser without being completely dependent
on a front-end-only resource loader nor a browser-detection library being
up-to-date.

• Detector README

This Drupal module includes the Detector library, and sets it up to run tests
on the browser in such a way that custom Drupal modules are able to detect
browser capabilities.

For a demonstration of the sorts of browser capabilities that Detector
can detect, see the official Detector site.

Installation

See http://drupal.org/documentation/install/modules-themes
for a general guide on installing and updating modules.

This module requires the Libraries
module in order to work. It also requires that you install the Detector
library into your site’s Libraries directory.

For most sites, your Libraries directory will be

sites/all/libraries

If you are using an installation profile, the Libraries directory will be

profile/profile_name/libraries

Installing Detector library

The easiest way to install the Detector libraries is by using Git.

To clone the Github repository into your site, go to your Libraries directory
and type:

git clone https://github.com/dmolsen/Detector.git

On the other hand, if your site is already in Git and you’d like a bit more
control over dependent repositories, you may be better off adding it as a
submodule. To do that, run the following from the root directory:

git submodule add https://github.com/dmolsen/Detector.git path/to/libraries/Detector
git add .gitmodules

More information about Git submodules can be found in the
GIT SCM Manual.

Once you’ve finished copying the Detector library to its destination, follow
the installation procedure. This includes
setting up its config.ini file and changing permissions on some subdirectories.

Extra Tests

This module provides a few additional, optional tests that detect Flash and
Java. See the Extras section for more details.

Usage

There are multiple ways to use Detector’s abilities.

Reference to global $ua object

Detector publishes a global variable called $ua, that contains the relevant
client details straight from the source

global $ua;

For more detailed information on the usage of the $ua object, see the
Detector documentation.

DetectorProperty

There is also a class called DetectorProperty that exposes functions that will
help you obtain details from the $ua object without having to reference it
directly. It exposes a couple of static functions:

• DetectorProperty::getProperty($id)
  
  Fetches the contents of the property matching key $id. If the property you
  are looking for is nested, use an arrow to join them.
  
  For example, “screenattributes->colorDepth” will fetch the colour depth
  of the screen attached to the client.
• DetectorProperty::listProperties()
  
  Fetches a list of all Detector properties in a key/value array.

Rules

Detector offers its properties up to Rules. You can also use “when Detector
properties are initialised” as a Rules action.

Context

Detector also offers up its properties to Context module, so that site contexts
can be set on the value of a particular property. To use it on a set of
properties, define multiple Contexts and combine them into another Context,
using a Context action.

Extras

This module provides a few additional, optional tests that detect Flash and
Java. To use these tests, copy them from the tests/perrequest directory
into Detector’s lib/Detector/tests/perrequest directory.

Requirements

These tests require additional JavaScript to be included via CDN,
specifically:

• Java detection: deployJava.js from java.com
• Flash detection: swfobject.js from ajax.googleapis.com

The module supports copies of these libraries at custom-defined sources, and
allows for them to be hosted anywhere you like, whether within your Drupal site
itself, or on a CDN you control.

Once you’ve installed these files where you want, go to the Settings page
(admin/config/development/detector) and set the URL (if an external file) or
the internal path (if local) into the
Path to deployJava script and Path to swfobject script fields.

TODO

• #1612200: Play nicely with Modernizr.module