167326 - Microsoft Windows Media Player site - needs to detect Gecko

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 150034

(Tech Evangelism Graveyard :: English US, defect, P3)

Description

[David Tenser [:djst]]

David Tenser wrote:
Take a look at the page for Windows Media Player 9 Beta:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/default.asp

The page looks fine in IE (of course), and in Mozilla/Netscape 7 the first top
and left margin is negative. You can barely see the top menu.

/ David

pablo vanwoerkom wrote:
Of course the look changes with the useragent pref:
without agent: ftp://[e-mail]/noagent.png
with agent: ftp://[e-mail]/yesagent.png

PeEmm wrote:
Password, please...
But first, what do you mean? Without user agent?  :-\

pablo vanwoerkom wrote:
Sorry:
with agent: http://home.planet.nl/~woerk095/yesagent.png
without agent: http://home.planet.nl/~woerk095/noagent.png
agent = pref("general.useragent.override", "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0;
Windows NT 4.0)");
in all.js

PeEmm wrote:
Shit! It's getting worse. Different style sheets are used. This is for IE
browsers: <http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/css/WinMacIE.css> and
this is for NS: <http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/css/WinNN.css>

In WinMacIE.css there is *no* sheet for BODY, but in WinNN.css the top and left
margins are set to /minus/ 10 pixels {MARGIN: -10px 0px 0px -10px}. Guerilla...

Comment 1

[Lars P M]

Parish wrote:
On 07/09/2002 21:00 A strange alien lifeform, PeEmm, reared up on its
hind legs and bellowed:

 > It's not the "Netscape/7.0" bit which ruins the site, it rather seems to
 > be the "Netscape6/6.2" which saves it. Using such a string I got another

It's the "Netscape6" bit that is the key (the "/x.x" bit is irrelevant).
check my UA in this message, it's just "Netscape6" and the MS site
renders fine. As I said, MS is testing for Netscape6, but not 7, and
that affects the HTML that it serves.

I don't know anything really about Active Server Pages but I believe that the
browser sniffer code is on the server so you don't see it, unlike "conventional"
webpages where it is some JS embedded in the page itself. Means that you can
only guess at how it identifies browsers. In my experienece, as long as I have
something like "Netscape6/6.5" in my UA string then all MS webpages render to an
acceptable degree, if not optimally.

 > page loaded with the following style addition, overruling the external
 > style sheet:
 >
 > "<style> BODY {margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;}</STYLE>"
 >
 > Mozilla browsers will still break.

They don't use a client side ua string sniffer, so it must be server side. I
tried different variants and found out that the minimum wording in the string
must be "Mozilla Netscape6" to have it render perfectly. Then you get the
WinNN.css and the overruling <style> mentioned above. If you use another digit
then "6" (4, 5, 7 or whatever) you will get the ugly rendering: WinNN.css but
without the <style>. If you take away "Mozilla" from the ua string, you'll get
the WinMacIE.css, which is better than WinNN.css *without* the <style>, but
worse than WinNN.css *with* the <style>. The exception the web master has done
for Netscape6 is — believe it or not — in Netscape's favour! So you are right,
MS *is* testing for Netscape6, but has forgotten (or "forgotten") all other
Mozilla based browsers.

In summary, the surfer is given one of three different pages.
1) the default (IE, Opera): using WinMacIE.css
2) the Netscape/Mozilla page: using WinNN.css
3) the Netscape6 page: using WinNN.css, but adding a <style> overrule

If the ua string of a Mozilla browser doesn't mention "Netscape6" no 2 will be
loaded, which looks good in Netscape Communicator, but not in Mozilla. No 1
looks better than no 2, but then you'll have a white strip on the right part of
the screen. The best option for Mozilla is no 3.

/P.M.

Comment 2

[David Tenser [:djst]]

I still see this problem. Confirming bug.

Comment 3

[Susie Wyshak]

OK there probably isn't a need to discuss this in detail: Like many sites they
are detecting Netscape 6 instead of Gecko. We will let them know to detect Gecko
instead.

-->Arun

Comment 4

[Henri Sivonen (:hsivonen)]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 150034 ***