Topic: quick question on cross-browser/version testing (Page 1 of 1)

ok, I use css for my site - whatever, no big deal - whats the easiest way to test the css across differing versions of IE and then for Netscape? I mean, the biggest thing is that IE is like 98% of the site traffic, so I need to concentrate on that, but of course since Microsoft sucks my ass, you can't have different versions of their crappy browser installed at the same time. Any solutions out there that you know of? The biggest problems are between 6.0 and then 5.5/5.0

you'll have to buy another computer

or post here and call for a browser test specifying browsers needed. I have IE6 and 5.5 here, maybe 5 on my laptop but I don't recall

Jason

EDIT/PS: looks fine in IE5.5 and 6, if you're talking about techworthy

[This message has been edited by JKMabry (edited 03-26-2003).]

Get yourself an old HD from about 5 to 10 GB
Divide it in partitions, the first partition (primary partition) should be about 5-10 MB you should install a bootloader in it.
- Now divide the remaining diskspace in equal partions (one primary an one secundary with logical volumes).
- Install Win98/95 in each partition.
- Install IE version of choice on each windows partition.

And ready is your multi IE test suite. Thanks to the bootloader you can choose any windows version with any IE version on it. And if you setup the bios to start from this new HD you can also put the old HD in the bootloader menu and set it to default.
xosl a good bootloader.
Partitioning can be done with good old Fdisk.

 
"Freedom of speech is by no means freedom to insult others" from the Razorart goodbye letter.

[This message has been edited by Rinswind 2th (edited 03-26-2003).]

I have the latest IE on one pc, then another pc with multi boot partitions for I.E5, 5.5 etc. Unfortunatly i have to chase down win98 or win95 so i can test IE4.0 but apparently u cant install a win9x after a 2k or it doesnt dual boot so im told =/

Opera, mozilla, netscape are all good because u can install them all on the one pc, its just the ms crap unfortunately ;(.. U cant even unistall the bloody things..

I am going to go a completely different route with this.
http://validator.w3.org/ http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

The above links are to the HTML and CSS validators. If your pages validate then that is all you need, they shoud degrade nicely on older browsers. There is really no way to test your pages against all the browsers that are out there, nor should you need to. I can come up with a huge list of browsers that you might validate against, i am prolly going to end up listing a bunch below, but, all in all you should not work to validate in all of these. Validate to the standards and your browser of choice. Make sure it looks good in IE 6.0 which is the major browser right now, and all the others should follow, just make sure not to use elements that don't work well in the others.

Mozilla
IE6.0/Win
IE6.0/Mac
IE5.5/Win
IR5.5/Mac
NS7.0
NS4.7/Win
NS4.7/Mac
NS4.7/*nix
Opera6.0
Opera7.0
Lynx
Amaya

And so many other browsers that fall in between all the rest. There are probabally 10 times the number of browsers out there than I listed above, and there is no way to test them all. That is what the emerging standards are about. Make sure it all works in the browser of your choice, and that the page validates. You could do more, but why would you want to continue the browser wars. Make your page strive for the standards and all other will follow.

When I do my hard development, I make sure that I validate, but at the same time I leave my email up there for people who have problems. I get a number of emails from people and I fix the errors as they come up. Just yesterday I had someone complain about an error in NS4.7/linux. I do not know why someone would be using NS on linux, but it is still a problem, and I would not have been able to find it if the user didn't point it out.


Me