The following is a screen shot of the BrowserHawk Editor main user interface. Each area marked in the graphic is described in detail below.
The main user interface of the BrowserHawk Editor consists of two major divisions – folders/browsers and filters. These areas are separated by a dark gray horizontal divider line (item #6). You can drag this line up or down to size each section accordingly. For example, when working mostly with folders and browsers, you'll likely want to bring this line down to increase the amount of viewable screen space in that area.
Folder/Browser Window Pane (1)
The area of the screen marked by item #1 is the Folder/Browser Window Pane. This window provides a view for all defined folders and browsers. Use this window to scroll through the defined folders and browsers to find the particular item you are interested in.
When you click on a particular browser or folder, all properties and values for it are displayed in the Properties Window Pane (item #4). In the screen shot above, Netscape 4 is highlighted in blue in the Folder/Browser Window Pane, indicating that it is the currently selected object. Therefore, the properties and values displayed in the Properties Window Pane are specific to Netscape 4.
BrowserHawk comes with a default set of these definitions, stored in a file named maindefs.bdf, ready for your immediate use. However, BrowserHawk also provides several features to allow you to customize your browser definitions to best suit your particular needs.
Folders (2)
Folders provide a meaningful way for you to group and work with browsers of a related type. This will most often be browsers made by the same manufacturer, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, or browsers which serve a similar purpose - such as web crawler search agents like AltaVista or HotBot. For simplicity, any software program capable of retrieving a web page from your server is referred to as a browser.
In addition to visually grouping related browsers together, folders also provide a powerful editing feature for updating browser properties. This allows you to recursively copy a change made to a property automatically to all browsers contained in that folder.
Folders are listed in the Folder/Browser Window Pane (item #1) according to a description you supply when you create the folder. A folder can easily be distinguished from a browser in this window by looking at its associated icon. All folders have a graphical icon of a folder, or in some cases, an icon which represents the manufacturer. For example, in the screen shot above, you may recognize the Netscape icon next to the Folder listed as "Netscape". In some cases, the icon may represent the functional purpose of a group of browsers - such as the icon of a spider shown for the "Crawlers (search engines)" folder.
Browsers (3)
The main object within BrowserHawk is the browser itself. For each browser there is a collection of properties (item #9) and values (item #10). All browsers share the same set of properties. The values which these properties are set to, however, depends on that particular browser's capabilities.
Every browser in the Folder/Browser Window Pane (item #1) is shown with an icon which resembles a tiny browser window, along with a description for that browser which you specified when creating it.
When a browser or folder is selected (as indicated by a blue highlight on its description), the properties shown in the Properties Window Pane (item #4) are automatically updated to list the properties specific to that browser or folder. Since all browsers and folders share the same set of properties, the property names shown will be consistent across all items.
By default the properties are sorted in alphabetical order. Sometimes you may find it helpful to sort the properties in order of their values. In this case, click on the Value label (item #10) and the sort order will be changed. Likewise, clicking on the Property label (item #9) will sort your properties again by name.
Filters are another extremely powerful feature of BrowserHawk. They provide a way to override a property value - regardless of how it is defined in the Properties Window Pane (item #4) if the browser's user agent, cookie, or server environment variable contains data you specify. All defined filters are displayed in the Filters Window Pane.
The section divider separates the Folder/Browser Window Pane (item #1) and the Properties Window Pane (item #4) from the Filters Window Pane (item #5). You can raise or lower this divider to create more viewable screen space in the section you are working in. To do so, click on this divider and drag your mouse to change the sizes of the various window panes as desired.
Browser/Filter Label (7)
This label changes to provide you with additional information as you select different browsers and folders in the Folder/Browser Window Pane (item #1). When selecting a folder, it reflects "Folder: " along with the name of the folder. When selecting a browser, its shows the browser's description, along with the user agent search string currently defined for that browser.
The user agent search string is a very important piece of information. It is used by BrowserHawk to determine if a web browser visiting your site is indeed a match for that currently selected item in the Folder/Browser Window Pane.
Quick Find (8)
The Quick Find control allows you to quickly jump to a particular browser or folder, without having to scroll through the items in the Folder/Browser Window Pane (item #1). This is quite useful, especially if you have a lot of folders and browsers defined.
To use Quick Find click on the down arrow at the right-hand side of the combo box. It will then "drop down" an alphabetical list containing the descriptions of all defined folders and browsers. Then click on the item you wish to jump to. Immediately after you click the chosen folder or browser will appear selected in the Folder/Browser Window Pane (item #1), and its associated property values will be displayed in the Properties Window Pane (item #4).
Properties (9)
A property represents a piece of information you are interested in. For example, information on whether a browser supports "frames" is contained in a defined property as either True or False. Then from your web script, you can check the value of this property to know whether the browser visiting your site supports frames.
You can add, change, delete, or rename properties to suit your particular needs. Note however that the "version" related properties are a core part of BrowserHawk and may not be renamed or deleted.
When creating a property, you specify the type of data that the property will contain. For example, an "integer" type is used to store whole numbers, and a "Boolean" type is used to store True or False values. You can tell what data type has been assigned to a property by looking at the icon next to the property name in the Properties Window Pane (item #4).
Property Values (10)
Values represent the default data assigned to a given property. For example, "True" may be a data value assigned to the property "Frames". And "Netscape" may be a data value assigned to the property "browser". The Properties Window Pane (item #4) reflects all the data values for the currently highlighted folder or browser in the Folder/Browser Window Pane (item #1).
The default maindefs.bdf file that comes with BrowserHawk already contains the proper data values for each property of several different browsers defined. You can, however, change these as you see fit for your purposes. Likewise you will want to change the data values for any new properties you create.
Current Browser Definition File (11)
Browser Definition Files (BDFs) are used to store all your defined folders, browsers, and filters, along with all the appropriate data values you have assigned to their properties. The BrowserHawk title bar will always reflect the name of the currently open BDF file, as shown in item #11.
Status line (12)
The status line provides the following information:
- For each browser/folder, the date it was lasted updated in the BDF
- The version # of the BDF
- The date/time the BDF was last updated
- The date/time of the next scheduled check at cyScape for a newer BDF.
See Also:
Understanding Browser Definition Files