browser testing

[digitaldiva]

what are your secrets to browser testing? with so many different browsers and new versions being released all the time, how do you stay on top of testing over so many different platforms? i have firefox, opera and ie6 - i won't install ie7 - and i test on the current versions, but its a lot to keep up with even with three browsers and no matter what i can't be sure (being anti-ie7). so how do you mange testing your sites looks and functionality. i have heard about subscription services that will give screenshots of your site over all the browsers... but is that really a viable option? how do you manage the browser chaos?

[tech_support]

how do you manage the browser chaos?
Try using Multiple Internet Explorers (http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE), downloading older versions of Firefox, asking people to test your website etc. Not everybody has every browser, so it's best that you leave it on as a trial, ask people to test it, put it on the net and see how it goes.


i have heard about subscription services that will give screenshots of your site over all the browsers... but is that really a viable option?
No. Beta testing is.

[jscheuer1]

Screen shot services aren't too helpful, they cannot give an accurate idea of anything dynamic on the page. A service like Browser Pool is good. It lets you run just about any browser on just about any OS as a vm right on your desktop.

But, coding to standards and using object testing for javascript branching is a good approach. Once you do that and test out OK in a few different browsers (I recommend IE 6 & 7, Opera, FF, and the new Safari), you are pretty much good to go. You can, if it is important to you, include some legacy browsers. It helps, to have a base of experience with older browsers, but this comes only from doing and is not essential.

Asking other people to 'test' is limited by those other people's diligence and their ability to accurately report their findings.

[Twey]

Anti-IE7? Why?

Beta-testing is always a good idea, but generally speaking, if you stick to the standards the only browser you have to worry about is IE.

[Sliight]

Is it possible to have IE 6 on the same computer as I 7?

Guess I'll try and download it from Cnet and see if it installs :) I just snagged the extra browsers you listed, thank you

[jscheuer1]

Is it possible to have IE 6 on the same computer as I 7?

Guess I'll try and download it from Cnet and see if it installs :) I just snagged the extra browsers you listed, thank you

Not exactly. You can get earlier IE's at:

http://browsers.evolt.org/?ie/32bit/standalone

that will. However, all of the previous versions think that they are the installed version for the computer as far as conditional comments go. And, the IE 6 that I got there didn't support filters, this may or may not have been fixed since then. Even so, it is very useful. For very important testing, I maintain a real copy of IE 6 on a separate machine.

[digitaldiva]

So the answer is there is no good solution but to accept the chaos and install, install and refresh, refresh. Oh, and be a careful coder.

I am not really anti-ie7. I just didn't want to loose my ie6 for testing. but I'll try that multiple ie install technique. I have read a little about it, which was really why i posted this question. I couldn't imagine that screen-shot services are helpful, but it appears to be the only attempt at streamlining testing. I just thought, there must be a better way and somehow I have remained oblivious.

Its funny that web-developers have so many killer tools, techniques, languages but browser testing remains relatively cave-man.

[Twey]

Thanks to standards, browser testing is nearly obsolete. It's only the rebellious ones one has to worry about. If you test in Konqueror/Safari/Opera and IE, you're pretty much set. Opera's Presto, Konqueror's KHTML, and Safari's modified version of KHTML, WebKit, are the most standards-compliant engines in common use today. As a general rule, anything that will work in one of Konqueror, Safari, and Opera will work in any Mozilla-based browser and all of the others in that trio, as well as any other standards-based browser. That's the joy of standards. There is the odd exception, but nothing much to worry about -- the chances of running into one are small.

It's generally worth testing in IE7, IE6, and IE5.5, though, because they all still have a significant user base and probably will have for a while (IE5.5 because it's the latest version available for Mac, IE6 because it's the latest version available for pre-XPSP2 Windows) and differ fairly significantly. IE5 only matters if you actually want to support it, of course: personally I consider it too broken to even bother with.

[mwinter]

You can get earlier IE's at:

http://browsers.evolt.org/?ie/32bit/standalone

that will. However, all of the previous versions think that they are the installed version for the computer as far as conditional comments go.

I seem to recall that this could be fixed with a minor registry edit, though I don't remember the details: I had a registry patch at one time, which I've since deleted (or rather, didn't transfer onto my new hard disk).



And, the IE 6 that I got there didn't support filters, this may or may not have been fixed since then.

I think copying a particular DLL will fix that, too. You can probably find the relevant information on the Web. It's where I did.

[Sliight]

I think I'll just uninstall IE7 on my laptop, and throw IE6 on it... less tweaking, and I don't use laptop much anymore.

Thanks!

[Ryan Fitton]

Hi, if i was you i would install ie 7 (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/default.mspx), beacause it is always important to have all the latest browsers for testing. Apple have also launched Safari for windows (http://www.apple.com/safari/), though its still in BETA but you can test your websites on it.

But because W3C have set standards for website design, if you pass the W3C validation tests you will normaly find that that your designs will e the same in all browsers. But beacause browsers all know HTML they just interpret it differently there for you may find out that some browsers show your website differently, so therefore it is important to test your website in more than one browser. :)

[Twey]

On the other hand, IE6 is more limited than IE7, and something that works in IE6 is more likely to work in IE7 than vice versa. Since IE7 is more standards-compliant, I'd say it's probably a better idea to stick with IE6 for testing for now.

[jscheuer1]

On the other hand, IE6 is more limited than IE7, and something that works in IE6 is more likely to work in IE7 than vice versa. Since IE7 is more standards-compliant, I'd say it's probably a better idea to stick with IE6 for testing for now.

I'd have to say that from experience, this is not the case. The two browsers are simply so different, and yet both so different from other browsers as well, and both are widely used. If you are going to bother testing in one for accessibility reasons, you should test in the other as well.

If you live in Twey's world where everyone knows the standards and uses them while coding to a strict HTML 4.01 DOCTYPE, this is not quite as much of a problem. But we all know that not too many folks in this thread, let alone in the general page designing public, live in that world.

Even in Twey's world there can still occasionally be significant differences between IE 7 and other compliant browsers. IE 7, though it is a big improvement over 6 in the area of standards compliance, also brings with it new bugs and some of the old ones.

[Twey]

I'd have to say that from experience, this is not the case. The two browsers are simply so different, and yet both so different from other browsers as well, and both are widely used. If you are going to bother testing in one for accessibility reasons, you should test in the other as well.Certainly it's better to test in both, I was merely arguing in a hypothetical situation in which only one was available for testing.
If you live in Twey's world where everyone knows the standards and uses them while coding to a strict HTML 4.01 DOCTYPE, this is not quite as much of a problem. But we all know that not too many folks in this thread, let alone in the general page designing public, live in that world.Of course I don't believe that. I merely assume it. If my script breaks because of someone else's lack of standards compliance in their design, it's not my problem: the error is theirs.

[killerchutney]

http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

Quite cool idea for multi IE version testing.

[tech_support]

I already linked to it...