2008-09-20

Google Chrome and the user agent strings

...ok, so as usually when i go on holidays something big is happening ... at least a new browser is being born!
When even all of my non-geek friends are talking about Google Chrome, then Google has shot a big gun again. It was completely kept secret as far as i know and out of the blue they introduce this new browser that has some really neat features despite being an early version. The fact that at the same time they implemented face recognition in Picasa was not even noticed by many, although it is just as well exciting (or worrying:))
I will not do any review of Chrome here, go and try yourself, however i link here a great article that explains how the user agent strings have developed over time. Really, i never knew why IE said "Mozilla"!

Get file path in Firefox 3 - revisited

Because my previous entry on the subject is one of the most popular entries in my blog, yet the solution is not satisfactory (you have to get your users to mess with about:config), i decided to take a second look at the problem.

Just as a reminder: in Firefox 3 when you try to access a file input's value property, it only gives you the filename, whereas earlier versions (and some other browsers at the moment) would give you the full path.

Firefox team considers this as a security patch and there is a fair chance that IE8 (and ultimately other browsers) will have the same behavior.
There is a lot of discussion about this here and here, and apparently a lot of applications have been relying on this feature. (The above links are bug reports, try to refrain from useless comments)

A new approach to the problem lies in Adam Fisk's comment here. We can use a java applet to get the file path! The solution is working at the moment in all major browsers (demo here), but it might also be disabled in the future. Another problem is that because it completely avoids using the file input, you will still need to have your applet to do the actual upload. If you only need the path, you are fine, but if you need the path AND the file on the server side, you will need some more programming.

My first photosynth

If you haven't heard about photosynth yet, it is Microsoft's shiny new tool to create ...erm ...photosynths! You just have to see it with your own eyes what one can do with it. Here is my first attempt, 100% "synthy", photos taken at the center stone of Portugal.



Happy photosynthing!