Correct way to use Modernizr to detect IE?

Question

I wanted to use the Modernizr JS library to detect for some browser properties to determine what content to show or not show.

I have an app called Pano2VR which outputs both HTML5 and SWF. I need the HTML5 for iOS device users.

However, IE does not render this "HTML5" output at all. It seems their output uses CSS3 3D transforms and WebGL, one or more apparently unsupported in IE9.

So, for those users I need to display the Flash version. I was planning to use an IFRAME and either pass the SRC via a Modernizr script or document.write out the correct IFRAME code depending on browser.

All of which leads to how do I use Modernizr to detect simply IE or not IE? Or detect for CSS 3d transforms?

Or is there another way to do this?

Answer 1

Modernizr doesn't detect browsers as such, it detects which feature and capability are present and this is the whole jist of what it's trying to do.

You could try hooking in a simple detection script like this and then using it to make your choice. I've included Version Detection as well just in case that's needed. If you only want to check of any version of IE you could just look for the navigator.userAgent having a value of "MSIE".

var BrowserDetect = {
        init: function () {
            this.browser = this.searchString(this.dataBrowser) || "Other";
            this.version = this.searchVersion(navigator.userAgent) || this.searchVersion(navigator.appVersion) || "Unknown";
        },
        searchString: function (data) {
            for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++) {
                var dataString = data[i].string;
                this.versionSearchString = data[i].subString;

                if (dataString.indexOf(data[i].subString) !== -1) {
                    return data[i].identity;
                }
            }
        },
        searchVersion: function (dataString) {
            var index = dataString.indexOf(this.versionSearchString);
            if (index === -1) {
                return;
            }

            var rv = dataString.indexOf("rv:");
            if (this.versionSearchString === "Trident" && rv !== -1) {
                return parseFloat(dataString.substring(rv + 3));
            } else {
                return parseFloat(dataString.substring(index + this.versionSearchString.length + 1));
            }
        },

        dataBrowser: [
            {string: navigator.userAgent, subString: "Edge", identity: "MS Edge"},
            {string: navigator.userAgent, subString: "MSIE", identity: "Explorer"},
            {string: navigator.userAgent, subString: "Trident", identity: "Explorer"},
            {string: navigator.userAgent, subString: "Firefox", identity: "Firefox"},
            {string: navigator.userAgent, subString: "Opera", identity: "Opera"},  
            {string: navigator.userAgent, subString: "OPR", identity: "Opera"},  

            {string: navigator.userAgent, subString: "Chrome", identity: "Chrome"}, 
            {string: navigator.userAgent, subString: "Safari", identity: "Safari"}       
        ]
    };
    
    BrowserDetect.init();
    document.write("You are using <b>" + BrowserDetect.browser + "</b> with version <b>" + BrowserDetect.version + "</b>");

You can then simply check for:

BrowserDetect.browser == 'Explorer';
BrowserDetect.version <= 9;