How to get the Windows Phone user agent string
On a recent project I needed to extract the windows phone user-agent string for our usage analytics, and it had to be the same user-agent as the IE requests. While this didnât end up being as straight forward and I had hoped, the code below involves a few simple steps. First we have to insert a collapsed browser onto the page, then we can navigate it to specifically crafted HTML/JavaScript, which will in-turn notify the WebBrowser control of itâs user-agent. All you need to do is store it somewhere; in my case, I put it into a custom ApplicationSettings class, but you can store it anywhere you want.
Usage
Since this code requires adding a WebBrowser control to a page, itâs probably easier to do in code-behind as opposed to a view model.
public partial class HomeView : PhoneApplicationPage
{
public HomeView()
{
InitializeComponent();
Loaded += HomeView_Loaded;
}
private void HomeView_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
UserAgentHelper.GetUserAgent(
LayoutRoot,
userAgent =>
{
// TODO: Store this wherever you want
ApplicationSettings.Current.UserAgent = userAgent;
});
}
}
The Helper
public static class UserAgentHelper
{
private const string Html =
@"<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC ""-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"">
<html>
<head>
<script language=""javascript"" type=""text/javascript"">
function notifyUA() {
window.external.notify(navigator.userAgent);
}
</script>
</head>
<body onload=""notifyUA();""></body>
</html>";
public static void GetUserAgent(Panel rootElement, Action<string> callback)
{
var browser = new Microsoft.Phone.Controls.WebBrowser();
browser.IsScriptEnabled = true;
browser.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed;
browser.Loaded += (sender, args) => browser.NavigateToString(Html);
browser.ScriptNotify += (sender, args) =>
{
string userAgent = args.Value;
rootElement.Children.Remove(browser);
callback(userAgent);
};
rootElement.Children.Add(browser);
}
}
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