[appserver-io/webserver] Provide default environment variables defining client hardware

[wick-ed]

Mobile systems are on the rise and nearly every application does check for the hardware (or user agent) the client is using.
As we already have an environment variable module and a condition engine (by now only in the rewrite module) which can handle this task we can combine these two to provide a set of environment variables the developer can rely on.

UAC:

• There MUST be a set of environment variables determining the clients hardware
• These variables MUST be reliably present

[smolinari]

Just so I understand this better. Do you want appserver to do more to help device detection? In other words, instead of leaving it up to the client developer, appserver will offer its own environment variables about the device being used by the user? So this is extending the server environment variable module, which already dissects the HTTP header content?

Scott

[wick-ed]

Hi Scott, exactly! We currently do this for some applications we develop with a rewrite rule which is targeting the user agent. Would be cool to have an environment variable which every application could query (like HTTPS === 'on'). That would make life more easy for some developers I think. :)
The env module does not dissect the header though, that is done by server connection handling.

[smolinari]

Ah ok. But, the header is dissected. The device detection is just additional logic to help tell the application what device is being used. Got it. Thanks.

Scott