Hi

How do you lot test your site on different platforms? I have a site that works fine on pc. but someone just told me that When they used my site on a apple mac, they got an error. How can i chack this, I don't have access to an apple mac, is their a way to simulate it or something?

Though I don't do much design work I just typically test sites using the top few browsers (FireFox, Safari, Internet Explorer).

Usually those will cover your bases because most people are using them and or other browsers are based off them.

(Some will argue Opera too ;))

You could submit the site to browsershots.org and see how it renders.

Your only option to physically test the site in a specific browser is to have that browser available. For Safari, this means owning a Mac!

iMac's are relatively cheap, and if not, a Powerbook would work just as good.

Another advantage to owning a Mac is using iPhoney to test your site's layout in a display of the iPhone.

Your only option to physically test the site in a specific browser is to have that browser available. For Safari, this means owning a Mac!:confused: Did you notice that Safari's now available for Windoze too? On linux Konqueror also does a good job of rendering like Safari (they're both built on the KHTML rendering engine).

You could submit the site to browsershots.org and see how it renders.
This service looks great! Is there any reason why you would need to install all the browser and view your site locally rather than use this? Is the results reliable?

This service looks great! Is there any reason why you would need to install all the browser and view your site locally rather than use this? Is the results reliable?

The results (in my experience) are very reliable as far as looking at the site, using it is a different story though. I had an issue recently with IE6 not liking some navigation but the problem was when the user rolled over the navigation. I went as far as to install Virtual PC and use the image provided my Microsoft to try and reproduce it and I couldn't (however friends I asked with IE6 still could all see the problem).

Moral of the story is that there's nothing like hands on, but browsershots is really a very great second. The price can't be beat either. The one thing I can complain about is trying to setup your own in-house browsershots. It's not nearly as easy as they make it sound :emlaugh:

Ideally, testing in Firefox, IE 6 + IE 7 are the most imporant. If you are having trouble with transparency in IE6, there are a number of css fixes available. (Google is your friend)

Alternitavely, if you also want to check using safari, they offer a windows download. Don't know how it compares to the Macintosh version, but I can only image its based on the same code.

http://www.apple.com/safari/download/

:confused: Did you notice that Safari's now available for Windoze too? On linux Konqueror also does a good job of rendering like Safari (they're both built on the KHTML rendering engine).

Yeah, I was aware of Safari being available on Windows. I didnt' recommend it because of rendering inconsistencies between platforms that can be seen with every other browser product (IE4MAC, FF4MAC, etc).


This service looks great! Is there any reason why you would need to install all the browser and view your site locally rather than use this? Is the results reliable?

As stated by dollar, navigation/interaction with the site is going to be nil if you use this site. For most this wont' matter, but any sort of javascript debugging will be impossible for those implementing it.


The results (in my experience) are very reliable as far as looking at the site, using it is a different story though. I had an issue recently with IE6 not liking some navigation but the problem was when the user rolled over the navigation. I went as far as to install Virtual PC and use the image provided my Microsoft to try and reproduce it and I couldn't (however friends I asked with IE6 still could all see the problem).

Moral of the story is that there's nothing like hands on, but browsershots is really a very great second. The price can't be beat either. The one thing I can complain about is trying to setup your own in-house browsershots. It's not nearly as easy as they make it sound

I wish rolling a browsershots install was easier as well, but unfortunately I think it has a lot to do with how they capture the rendered result on screen.

For IE incompatibilities, I usually run a number of IE installs side by side in my VMWare Windows install. Although sometimes quirky, having IE5/5.5/6 installed simultaneously _is_ possible.

One thing I do is use MultipleIEs (google it) and keep Opera, Firefox (my main browser) and Safari installed as well. It helps a lot.

Hi

How do you lot test your site on different platforms? I have a site that works fine on pc. but someone just told me that When they used my site on a apple mac, they got an error. How can i chack this, I don't have access to an apple mac, is their a way to simulate it or something?

I mainly test sites with www.browsershots.org

I've found a few problems that occurred with the Windows version of Safari that don't occur with IE or FF, so testing with it is worthwhile.

Thanks guys. I recently launched a new site and i recieved an incomplete order. basically the customer went to check out but didn't complete the order. From the details it seemed a authentic order, So I comtacted the customer via email to see if they had a problem with the site. The customer told me that he had an error in the checkout page of my site on his mac. Well I've tried Safari on my PC and the site works fine. so now i'm confussed, Maybe it was the customer computer with the problem.

Does safari and Mac's deal with java script the same way as windows?

Hmmm...I'm no expert on Macs. In general, browsers handle JavaScript scripts with no errors the same. There can be differences in how browsers handle JavaScript warnings or errors. It would definitely be worthwhile to make sure your browser is displaying all JavaScript warning and error messages. Some browsers will just report a non-critical error and keep going while other browsers will just stop processing the JavaScript.

I think using browsershots.org is the best and fastest way

You don't really need to go as far as buying a Mac just to test out Safari. Windows Safari is enought for testing.

I recently have to do a quick research for my employer's web app and what i found is you need to support Firefox, IE6 and 7. If your site can support those browers you already got more than 95% of your user base covered. Safari and Opera is more like if you got nothing to do then you can try to support it but not really necessary.

I've seen problems that only appeared on mac safari, not on the windows version. So now I check with browsrcamp (http://www.browsrcamp.com/) or have a friend with a mac take a look at it.