jQuery Browser Plugin

A jQuery plugin for browser detection. jQuery v1.9.1 dropped support for browser detection, and this project aims to keep the detection up-to-date. Now written in TypeScript with full type definitions and modern browser support including MS Edge.

Installation

NPM

npm install @melloware/jquery.browser

Browser

Include script after the jQuery library:

<script src="/path/to/jquery.browser.js"></script>

Alternatively, you can use the plugin without jQuery by using the global object jQBrowser instead of $.browser.

Usage

JavaScript

Returns true if the current useragent is some version of Microsoft's Edge browser. Supports both legacy and Chromium based edge)

$.browser.msedge;

Returns true if the current useragent is some version of a WebKit browser (Safari, Chrome, Opera 15+, and Chromium Edge)

$.browser.webkit;

Returns true if the current useragent is some version of Firefox

$.browser.mozilla;

Reading the browser version

$.browser.version

You can also examine arbitrary useragents

jQBrowser.uaMatch("Mozilla/5.0...");

TypeScript

The plugin includes full TypeScript type definitions:

import { BrowserDetection, uaMatch } from '@melloware/jquery.browser';

// Use with jQuery
if ($.browser.chrome) {
  console.log(`Chrome version: ${$.browser.version}`);
}

// Use standalone
const browser = window.jQBrowser;
if (browser.msedge) {
  console.log('Microsoft Edge detected');
}

// Match arbitrary user agent
const detection = uaMatch("Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36...");
console.log(detection.name); // "msedge"

Browser Detection Features

Browser Detection

The plugin detects the following browsers:

• Chrome
• Firefox (mozilla)
• Safari
• Internet Explorer (msie) - including IE 11
• Microsoft Edge (msedge) - both Legacy EdgeHTML and Chromium-based Edge
• Opera (both Presto and Chromium-based)

Platform Detection

Detect specifically Windows, Mac, Linux, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Android, Kindle, BlackBerry, Chrome OS, and Windows Phone useragents:

$.browser.android
$.browser.blackberry
$.browser.cros
$.browser.ipad
$.browser.iphone
$.browser.ipod
$.browser.kindle
$.browser.linux
$.browser.mac
$.browser.msedge
$.browser.playbook
$.browser.silk
$.browser.win
$.browser["windows phone"]

Device Classification

Alternatively, you can detect for generic classifications such as desktop or mobile:

$.browser.desktop
$.browser.mobile

// User Agent for Firefox on Windows
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:25.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/25.0

$.browser.desktop // Returns true as a boolean

// User Agent for Safari on iPhone
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0(iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 7_0_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/537.51.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0 Mobile/11B508 Safari/9537.53

$.browser.mobile // Returns true as a boolean

Version Detection

Detect the browser's major version:

// User Agent for Chrome
// Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_9_0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/32.0.1664.3 Safari/537.36

$.browser.versionNumber // Returns 32 as a number
$.browser.version // Returns "32.0.1664.3" as a string

Features

• Support for new useragent on IE 11
• Support for Microsoft Edge (both Legacy EdgeHTML and Chromium-based)
• Support for WebKit based Opera browsers
• Written in TypeScript with full type definitions
• Modern build system using esbuild
• Comprehensive test suite using Vitest

Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js >= 20.0.0
• npm

Building

Install dependencies:

npm install

Build the project:

npm run build

This will:

• Compile TypeScript to JavaScript
• Generate type definitions (.d.ts files)
• Create IIFE bundle for browser use
• Generate minified version

The build outputs are placed in the dist/ directory:

• dist/jquery.browser.js - Main bundle (IIFE format)
• dist/jquery.browser.min.js - Minified bundle
• dist/jquery.browser.d.ts - TypeScript type definitions
• dist/jquery.browser.d.ts.map - Source map for types

Type Checking

Run TypeScript type checking without emitting files:

npm run type-check

Testing

The plugin uses Vitest for testing. All tests run in a Node.js environment with jsdom for browser API simulation.

# Run tests once
npm test

# Run tests in watch mode
npm run test:watch

# Run tests with UI
npm run test:ui

The test suite covers:

• All major browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, IE, Edge, Opera)
• All platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, mobile platforms)
• Browser version detection
• Platform detection
• Mobile/desktop classification
• Custom user agent matching

Project Structure

├── src/
│   └── jquery.browser.ts    # TypeScript source
├── dist/
│   ├── jquery.browser.js     # Compiled IIFE bundle
│   ├── jquery.browser.min.js # Minified bundle
│   ├── jquery.browser.d.ts   # Type definitions
│   └── jquery.browser.d.ts.map # Type definition source map
├── test/
│   ├── jquery.browser.test.ts # Vitest test suite
│   └── setup.ts               # Test setup
├── tsconfig.json              # TypeScript configuration
├── vitest.config.ts           # Vitest configuration
├── package.json
└── README.md

Publishing

Pre-publish Checklist

Before publishing, ensure:

1. Build the project:

   npm run build

2. Run tests:

   npm test

3. Verify package contents:

   npm pack --dry-run

   This shows what files will be included in the published package.

4. Check version number:

   • Update version in package.json if needed
   • Update version in build script banners if needed

Publishing to npm

Publishing

Adjust the version in the package.json if necessary and commit files. Then simply "Publish a Release" and the workflow will handle publishing to NPM.

Visit https://www.npmjs.com/package/@melloware/jquery.browser to confirm the package is published.

Browser Support

The plugin supports detection for:

• Chrome (all versions)
• Firefox (all versions)
• Safari (all versions)
• Internet Explorer (IE 6-11)
• Microsoft Edge (Legacy EdgeHTML and Chromium-based)
• Opera (Presto and Chromium-based)
• Mobile browsers (Android, iOS Safari, Windows Phone)
• Other browsers (Kindle, Silk, BlackBerry)

Contributing

• Source hosted at GitHub
• Report issues, questions, feature requests on GitHub Issues

License

MIT

Attributions

• Examples and original implementation
• Original Gist used for the plugin
• Original plugin by Gabriel Cebrian
• Modernized by Melloware