Issue 5347 - Add geckoInfo.deviceForm for phone and tablet

Issue 5347 - Add geckoInfo.deviceForm for phone and tablet

Rationale: info.application and info.applicationVersion are available only later, after a lot of code has already been initialized. We need this info sooner so we avoid running a lot of unnecessary code. Besides, the application name "Fennec" doesn't really tell us if it's on mobile or tablet, and we might want to do different things based on the device form factor, either now or in the future.

I've added a info.deviceForm property that can have the values "unknown" (default), "phone", or "tablet".

The parsing of the UA string is based on the specification here:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/User-Agent/Firefox

The name and possible values of the new property are inspired by this:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/customize/desktop/unattend/microsoft-windows-deployment-deviceform

[Manish Jethani, 2017-08-15 16:15:59]

Rationale: info.application and info.applicationVersion is available only later,
after a lot of code has already been initialized. We need this info sooner so we
avoid running a lot of unnecessary code. Besides, the application name "Fennec"
doesn't really tell us if it's on mobile or tablet, and we might want to do
different things based on the device form factor, either now or in the future.

I've added a info.deviceForm property that can have the values "unknown"
(default), "mobile", or "tablet".

The parsing of the UA string is based on the specification here:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/User-Agent/Firefox

The name and possible values of the new property are inspired by this:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/customize/desktop/unattend/...

[Manish Jethani, 2017-08-15 16:17:38]

On 2017/08/15 16:15:59, Manish Jethani wrote:

> I've added a info.deviceForm property that can have the values "unknown"
> (default), "mobile", or "tablet".

It's "phone", not "mobile"

[Sebastian Noack, 2017-08-15 16:31:17]

runtime.getPlatformInfo() provides a more reliable way to detect the OS, since
the user agent string can be changes by the user (or other means).

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/runtime/getPlat...

[Manish Jethani, 2017-08-15 16:44:08]

On 2017/08/15 16:31:17, Sebastian Noack wrote:
> runtime.getPlatformInfo() provides a more reliable way to detect the OS, since
> the user agent string can be changes by the user (or other means).
> 
>
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/runtime/getPlat...

We're already using runtime.getBrowserInfo, which would have sufficed if it
wasn't asynchronous. The application name on Android is "Fennec". This is
available only a little later though.

If the info module fetches this information asynchronously (which it does now),
we're going to need a way to tell when it's available, which means it should
probably dispatch an event.

We need this info fairly early in composer.postload.js, for example.

[Manish Jethani, 2017-08-15 16:53:04]

On 2017/08/15 16:44:08, Manish Jethani wrote:
> On 2017/08/15 16:31:17, Sebastian Noack wrote:
> > runtime.getPlatformInfo() provides a more reliable way to detect the OS,
since
> > the user agent string can be changes by the user (or other means).
> > 
> >
>
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/runtime/getPlat...
> 
> We're already using runtime.getBrowserInfo, which would have sufficed if it
> wasn't asynchronous. The application name on Android is "Fennec". This is
> available only a little later though.
> 
> If the info module fetches this information asynchronously (which it does
now),
> we're going to need a way to tell when it's available, which means it should
> probably dispatch an event.
> 
> We need this info fairly early in composer.postload.js, for example.

We could also just use chrome.windows as a proxy. If it's null, it's mobile.

[Sebastian Noack, 2017-08-15 17:02:21]

On 2017/08/15 16:53:04, Manish Jethani wrote:
> We could also just use chrome.windows as a proxy. If it's null, it's mobile.

Sounds like a fair compromise, if it has to be synchronous. It's possible though
that they will implement the "windows" API on Android at some point, but it's at
least not any less reliable than the user agent string (and much simpler to
check).