2009 December

Archive for December, 2009:

Test your web browser for WebSocket support

Posted by Jim Bergman on December 9, 2009 at 6:34 pm

Google announced an improved way for a web application to communicate with a server. The new method is called Web Sockets. You can read more info here on Web Sockets.

Here is a quick test to see if your web browser supports Web Sockets. At the time this post was published Google Chrome developer channel release 4.0.249.0 is the only browser to support Web Sockets.

Here is the JavaScript code (or right click and save file as WebSocketTest.js):

function WebSocketTest()
{
  if ("WebSocket" in window)
  {
    // Google example code
    //  var ws = new WebSocket("ws://example.com/service");
    //  ws.onopen = function()
    //  {
    //    // Web Socket is connected. You can send data by send() method
    //    ws.send("message to send"); ....
    //  };
    //  ws.onmessage = function (evt) { var received_msg = evt.data; ... };
    //  ws.onclose = function() { // websocket is closed. };
    alert("WebSockets supported here!rnrnBrowser: " + navigator.appName + " " + navigator.appVersion + "rnrntest by jimbergman.net (based on Google sample code)");
  }
  else
  {
    // the browser doesn't support WebSockets
    alert("WebSockets NOT supported here!rnrnBrowser: " + navigator.appName + " " + navigator.appVersion + "rnrntest by jimbergman.net (based on Google sample code)");
  }
}

Sample HTML code (save file as WebSocketTest.html in same folder as .js file above):

<html>
<head>
<title>JimBergman.net - JavaScript: WebSocketTest</title>
<script type="text/javascript" src="WebSocketTest.js"></script>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<a href="javascript:WebSocketTest()">Run WebSocket test</a>
</body>
</html>

UPDATE:

Result of this test on an Windows 7 PC in Google Chrome v4.0.249.0