Will there be user-agent allowance.

[wellanderbryan]

Hi,
Will there be user-agent sting allowance in it?
I like that feature in 2.0x the site that does that is http://sillydog.org/forum." target="_blank

[Arty]

no. you can't restrict any browser to access forum, at least not with phpbb means. and i hope there won't be any mods for it because stupid kids will misuse it.

[haravikk]

Why would you want to restrict a browser? A decent HTML coder can make a site look good in all browsers

[Legoguy]

If anything, all IE browsers should be blocked

Go Firebird

Yes, I'm just kidding about blocking IE

[DeadEye686]

Yes, I'm just kidding about blocking IE

I'm not... IE is the reason W3C standards haven't taken hold - IE doesn't even follow the damn standards.

[psoTFX]

erm, it doesn't follow all the standards ... may I remind you that for the longest time Netscape was the real bad boy and with good reason. There are absolutely no plans at all to introduce "browser blocking". I find it a rediculous idea and simply will not entertain it.

[Wert]

Browser blocking is one of the stupidest ideas I've heard in a long time.

I'm with Paul on this one.

[TheElf]

erm, it doesn't follow all the standards ... may I remind you that for the longest time Netscape was the real bad boy and with good reason. There are absolutely no plans at all to introduce "browser blocking". I find it a rediculous idea and simply will not entertain it.

Browser blocking and user agent allowance is two different things. But the later one has its own risks and flaws, but I see some potential here.

Say, you would give access level permissions to some search engine robots and would like to identify them based on user agent. Or you make a small side board for an application that lets users to browse your forums. But in that case you need some settings different from the users default settings, since there are space limits, and you don't want irrevalant forums displayed.

Most of the help pages should be browser specific (only relevant topics displayed in index, but you can have read permissions for the rest).

If there is a bug report forum for glitches on a home page / forum it is best if the default forum for that is specific to your browser. You know, that there are non technical forums, where the people say, they are using "axelero ADSL" as browser, when they have a problem with a bug or need assistance.

For the search engine problem an IP based authentication is better (user agent information can be reproduced easily, so this way someone can log in as a search engine easily), for the later problem you should allow a get paramter for all pages telling the forum script which set of settings / themes / etc. should use (we want optimized settings not permissions).

So the two tech support issues are the only places where an user agent based authentication can be an acceptable option. But you can also use different themes based on user agent, and even more importantly can enable and disable certain functions easily.

Like if you know that there is a proxy and can identify it from its user agent, you know, that many people can come from the same IP, and a session ID used as a get parameter for most of the pages combined with an IP isn't enough to identify the user, so can disable that feature and enforce cookie based session tracking based on user agent, etc.

If you know that certain functions are bugous in a web browser you can disable these functions for that browser with similar settings.

As I see it is different from locking out a browser, or limiting the access to a board to a few browsers only.

[psoTFX]

erm, bots are supported "as is" ... and that includes defining a browser-agent. If a template outputs something that is specific to a browser (highly unrecommended) it should deal with it by itself. In that case it is superior to test for the browser type client-side. I see no reason for the other things you cite in the vanilla board. They all sound rather more like Mods being utilised by a small number of boards.

[TheElf]

I agree with the opinion you have now about this functionality, and as I see it it is mostly template / mod stuff, but if you don't see any reason why would someone do any mod that provides automatic login / changes in settings / etc based on user agent (or IP, or URL you use when reaching the board, etc) then you have no reason to provide support for changing the user identification method from password to anything else.

If you don't think there is any valid reason for a such chance, your likely goal will be simple: make sure the code will be fast and simple, even if it makes implementing such changes MUCH harder. If you see a reason that is not just a post you consider "just a stupid idea", but has some potential uses, then you can place a few extra comments here and there and think about possible mods and changes when you make the base code.