Browser Info Format

WebCatalog's Browser Info.txt file format

The Browser Info.txt file is a list of information about various web browsers (e.g. Netscape, Microsoft Information Explorer) that tells WebCatalog what the HTML capabilities of each browser are. WebCatalog can hide HTML from browsers that do not understand certain tags: for instance, Netscape 1.0 cannot understand <TABLE>, but Netscape 1.1 can. This helps you design a single web page that will automatically be tailored for each browser that visits that page.

Browser Name <tab> HTML Level <tab> SSL-Aware?

Mozilla/1.0  1  T
Mozilla/1.1  1  T
Mozilla/1.2  2  F
Mozilla/1.   2  T
Mozilla/2.   2  T
Mozilla/3.   3  T

The list above says that

Netscape 1.0x (Mozilla/1.0) will see text inside WebCatalog's [HTML1][/HTML1] tags, and that it is SSL-aware.
The same is true for Netscape 1.1x (Mozilla/1.1).
Microsoft's Information Explorer identifies itself as Mozilla/1.2, but MSIE does not understand SSL, so we have marked it as "F" (false) in the list above. This means WebCatalog will not show any text inside [secureBrowser][/secureBrowser] to MSIE browsers.
Netscape 1.3 and above are marked as [HTML2], with SSL true
Netscape 2.x and above are marked as [HTML2], with SSL true
Netscape 3.x and above are marked as [HTML3], with SSL true

Any browser not listed will be assumed to be [HTML1] and non-SSL.

As new browsers reach the market, you can modify this file so that WebCatalog can display correct HTML for each one.

One thing to remember is that [HTML1], [HTML2], [HTML3] are arbitrary classifications that do not correspond to W3.org's definitions of HTML levels. They are just 3 different classifications that you can make however you wish. If you do not include special HTML code for Netscape 3.x, then Browser Info.txt would work better if the last line of the file said, 'Mozilla/3. 2 T' If you want to set up a site that displays information as a table to table-capable browsers and uses a non-table way to display the information to non table-capable browsers, then there is no need to use [HTML3] at all. You would only use table [HTML2] and non-table [HTML1] ways to display information. Even if you used frames, only 2 different sets of [HTML] need to be used because the frame information is put inside of a HTML comment.