An overview of jQuery.browser

Update: jQuery.version should have been jQuery.browser.version. Added Firefox 3.0.1

If you are a user of jQuery, you may be aware of the basic browser sniffer that comes with it. However, it may seem to return the wrong version number for certain browsers (Firefox and Safari in particular). This is because it returns the version number of the rendering engine (i.e. the part of the web browser that determines how a page should look and function). To help simplify things, I have created a table of common user agents and what jQuery returns:

BrowserjQuery.browserjQuery.browser.version
Internet Explorer 6jQuery.browser.msie = true6.0
Internet Explorer 7jQuery.browser.msie = true7.0
Firefox 1.5 (first release)jQuery.browser.mozilla = true1.8 or 1.8.0
Firefox 1.5.0.9jQuery.browser.mozilla = true1.8.0.9
Firefox 2.0 (first release)jQuery.browser.mozilla = true1.8.1
Firefox 2.0.0.9jQuery.browser.mozilla = true1.8.1.9
Firefox 3.0jQuery.browser.mozilla = true1.9
Firefox 3.0.1jQuery.browser.mozilla = true1.9.0.1
Safari 2.0.2jQuery.browser.safari = true416.11 / 416.12
Safari 2.0.4jQuery.browser.safari = true418.x - 419
Safari 3.0.xjQuery.browser.safari = true522+, 522.x, 523.x
Safari 3.1.xjQuery.browser.safari = true525.x, 526+
Opera xjQuery.browser.opera = truex

I have listed Opera as 'Opera x' as the version number 'x' is always returned by jQuery.browser.version (so no extra work is required, unlike Firefox and Safari).

This table is based on information from UserAgentString.com. There is a Firefox 1.5.0.12, but I am unsure of the version number, plus there are Safari versions with a slightly different rendering engine version number (i.e. 2.0.2 is not always 416.11). Basically, with Safari, if the version number returned is less than 418, it is Safari 2 or lower and if it is around 525/526 it is Safari 3.1.

Comments

Steven said…
This actually kind of makes since, as the rendering engine is the important part, not the actual browser version. I know Netscape would provide new versions with only GUI changes but the same rendering engine.

Thanks for posting this, its a good reference!
7:45 pm, August 20, 2008
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Select box manipulation with jQuery

If you read the jQuery mailing list , you may be aware that I have updated my plugins for working with select boxes . Summary of changes: addOption replaces any options with the same value (so think of it as an add/replace options plugin selectOptions selected options in addition to what was already selected, but there is now an option for it not to do this There are two new methods: copyOptions which is for copying options between select boxes ajaxAddOption allows you to add options via AJAX (i.e. could be used for create options dynamically from a server script)
Read more

Basic Excel Spreadsheet Generation (ASP/ASP.NET)

The 'correct' way to generate Excel spreadsheets is through the use of Office Web Components . However, due to the licensing (see MSKB Article ) you cannot use them on a public internet site (as a client license for Office is needed for each user retrieving the document). However, this can be overcome due to the fact that Excel recognises HTML code. You can therefore output HTML that can be opened in Excel: First of all, set the content type and response header to make the browser handle it as an Excel spreadsheet. ASP VBScript: <%@Language="VBScript"%> <% Response.ContentType="application/vnd.ms-excel" Response.AddHeader "content-disposition", "attachment; filename=ExcelFileName" %> ASP JScript: <%@Language="JScript"%> <% Response.ContentType="application/vnd.ms-excel"; Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment; filename=ExcelFileName"); %
Read more

Link: HTML Agility Pack (.NET)

The HTML Agility Pack is an HTML parser for .NET, supporting XPATH and XSLT parsing. Basically the HTML equivalent of XmlDocument . Example use (from site): HtmlDocument doc = new HtmlDocument(); doc.Load("file.htm"); foreach(HtmlNode link in doc.DocumentElement.SelectNodes("//a[@href]") { HtmlAttribute att = link["href"]; att.Value = FixLink(att); } doc.Save("file.htm");
Read more