Detecting WebView2 vs standalone Edge browser? - javascript

I have a page that needs to render differently depending on whether it's being viewed from a WebView2 component (inside another application) or from a standalone Microsoft Edge browser. I tried distinguishing the two via the user agent string, but the strings are more or less identical (both contain "Edg"). Does anyone have a method to distinguish between a WebView2 and an Edge browser?

There's no perfect way for web content to identify that is running within a WebView2 because the host app of the WebView2 can customize so many aspects of the WebView2.
For example, the host app can change the user agent via CoreWebView2Settings.UserAgent to appear to be Chrome or any other browser. Or the host app can inject script using CoreWebView2.AddScriptToExecuteOnDocumentCreatedAsync and change the DOM or other objects in script.
However, if you are trying to determine if your web content is running within your own app, you can use those same customizations I mention above as a way for the host app to signal to the web content that the web content is running within a WebView2.

Related

Is it possible to build a standalone HTML5 App *without* bundling a browser?

Solutions such as Electron require bundling an entire browser with the resulting .app build, which causes it to have several gigabytes even for a single hello world app. Most users already have Chrome installed on their computers, though. Is it possible to create a standalone .app application which uses the existing browser to open itself, hiding the frames / URL bar of the browser, and has access to system resources (fs, child processes, etc.)?
Edit: I'm thinking something on the lines of "bundle node.js + an HTML into a .app which opens an existing browser (pointing to that HTML) without the URL bar". Node.js can then access the filesystem and communicate with the App via HTTP, WS, etc. The only real problem here is opening Chrome without the URL bar, I guess.
I saw nodekit which is an attempt to use the JavaScript engine already available on each platform.
So for example on Mac it'll probably use WKWebView and on Windows 10 it'll run on the JavaScript Universal apps platform.
For most though, only having to test on electron makes developing apps much simpler and you can have a fully functional app in an installer under 40MB.

Can I make a socket connection through Javascript

What I want to do
Make a simple socket connection to a server on the browser. I want to not send any header information with the socket connection.
The Problem
It looks like I am unable to make a socket connection with javascript that does not send header data (Is there a way to do a tcp connection to an IP with javascript?).
I thought maybe I could make a connection with a chrome extension, however it looks like the socket API is only available for chrome apps (Google Chrome Socket API in extensions).
I am thinking that I might need to make a native application that will make socket connections through requests made by the browser using Native Messaging.
Is there anyway I can achieve this or am I out of luck?
Raw socket connections through the browser are wrapped up in security concerns. Users can be easily manipulated to allow things to run that shouldn't.
TCP and UDP Socket API
W3C Editor's Draft 20 January 2016
is located here.
http://raw-sockets.sysapps.org/
Mozilla's API information here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/B2G_OS/API/TCPSocket "This API is available on Firefox OS for privileged or certified applications only."
If you work with raw TCP connections. I would suggest
(1) downloading PHP onto the local computer. PHP has a developer web host build in so you can run whatever application you want on PHP using the browser as your GUI.
(2) download node.js.
You are not out of luck you just need to achieve it with the understanding that you are working outside the box for normal browser based scripting created from security concerns, and that means the user/client needs to install something manually.
If you must use chrome browser on the client side, you will need to make an -extension- correction webapp. You can as a developer make one that you can use on your own computers.
https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/getstarted
https://developer.chrome.com/apps/first_app
Load the extension#
Extensions that you download from the Chrome Web
Store are packaged up as .crx files, which is great for distribution,
but not so great for development. Recognizing this, Chrome gives you a
quick way of loading up your working directory for testing. Let's do
that now.
Visit chrome://extensions in your browser (or open up the Chrome menu
by clicking the icon to the far right of the Omnibox: The menu's icon
is three horizontal bars. and select Extensions under the Tools menu
to get to the same place).
Ensure that the Developer mode checkbox in the top right-hand corner
is checked.
Click Load unpacked extension… to pop up a file-selection dialog.
Navigate to the directory in which your extension files live, and
select it.
Alternatively, you can drag and drop the directory where your
extension files live onto chrome://extensions in your browser to load
it.
If the extension is valid, it'll be loaded up and active right away!
If it's invalid, an error message will be displayed at the top of the
page. Correct the error, and try again.
This insures that non developers don't load an extension which does not comply with the normal security concerns.
Communicating between with the script on the web page to the extension.
Can be done with message passing ... https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/messaging
The extension can add content directly to the web page which is available to the script on the web page. If for example the extension replaced the web cam image with a static image when the webcam script reads what it believes is the webcam it gets the static image instead, which explains why I look like an alien from space on the webcam. Although I did not create an extension to do that, I merely modified an existing extension to replace the function that gets the webcam image with a function to get a static image.
You can use SignalR, it is javascript library (JQuery Plugin) and it enables you to open web sockets from the browser to a server. Please check the following links:
https://blog.3d-logic.com/2015/03/29/signalr-on-the-wire-an-informal-description-of-the-signalr-protocol/
http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/an-introduction-to-websockets
https://github.com/SignalR/SignalR

detect all installed apps from Safari

I'm trying to detect all installed apps on an iPhone from Safari.I have a list of 3000 URls scheme.From a WebView and using javascript, I want to loop this list and save the excitant apps (URls scheme that have a response) .Is that possible?
Simply not possible, as #rckoenes said, it would launch each app you call - therefore halting your browser instance - and looping through that many URIs even if it did return a value rather than launching the app would probably make you no friends. there are ways and means of detecting if YOUR app or AN app is present and launching it via smart meta banners or look at this project: https://github.com/hampusohlsson/browser-deeplink

Capture web page data using native language code

I'm looking for leads on how to capture web page metadata from the current browser page. I want to create a feature in my application that will allow the user to press a hot key and record meta data from the web page currently open in the user's browser. My application will be running minimized, this feature is to be activated by a global hot key.
I'm using nw.js (formerly Node-Webkit) to create this application, so ideally, the solution would be javascript running in a desktop installation of Node.js. If this is not practical, I understand that I can call platform specific code from nw.js, so solutions developed in any desktop os language would be of interest.
My application targets OS X and Windows.
I'm hoping to capture metadata from all major modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari and IE 10+).
At a minimum I need to capture the page url, but I also want to capture Keywords, Description and highlighted text for the source web page.
I need to implement this function without modifying the source webpage in any way, and I prefer to avoid the need for browser extensions, bookmarklets or plugins.
If a solution exists using a remote controlled browser extension (no user interaction) that would be of interest, but ideally I want to avoid requiring the end user to install or interact with anything but my application.
My search to date has located no information on reading web page information from applications outside the browser.
Any thoughts or leads are much appreciated.

Launch mobile Safari from UIWebView *without* modifying app source?

I'm developing a small site that will only be viewed in-app inside a UIWebView, and one page has several links to an external website. I'd like these to open in mobile Safari, but all links inside the app load within the webview. Modifying the source of the app isn't an option since the site needs to be live before any changes could be submitted.
Is there a way to force a link inside a UIWebView to launch mobile Safari using HTML/5 or Javascript? Mimic shouldStartLoadWithRequest? Sneaky, hacky workarounds or brilliant alternate solutions?
(And, out of sheer curiosity... why not?)
It would be bad design to let sites access the frameworks on the iPhone via simple HTML. This would open up all sorts of security holes. Its not web behavior you want to alter, so I think you may need to change the app source. I still don't understand why that isn't an option. Could you go into more depth?
One option would be to add a custom URL handler. Your website could then determine if the "broswer" is the app and serve custom URLs for those links you'd like to maintain (aka open) in your app. Then, any standard HTTP/s URLs would open in Mobile Safari.
In other words, have your web server provide urls like myappurl:// for the links you'd like your app to handle, and http:// which would open Mobile Safari.

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