Fri, 2009-02-06 10:45
Hi there
i have been doing development for a while now and consider myself reasonably experienced and have what i think is a good knowledge base of css and some of its little quirks having said that i know that i am still a long way from being where i want to ... i learn something new on every project !!!!.. I have come accross a problem that i have not really been aware of before and i am looking for some guidence on this
when i set up a project i always set up a style sheet for ie6 and ie 7 .. i work with firefox ... on a mac ..
i build for firefox and then correct for ie 6 and ie7 when they go wrong (which is more often then i would like ... but i guess that this is the nature of the beast ) i work in a office that has a machine running ie 6 and different one that runs ie 7 ... with these i do all my testing on .. i think that i have covered all my bases .. as i use firefox i assume that it is the same on the mac and the windows version (i do not have access to this at work ) i check it in Safari as well as Opera ... i think that this gives me a good coverage ..
i have two questions really , the first is : Is this enough testing ?
the other question is this : it seems that not all versions of ie 7 display the page in the same way , .. a colleague has a lap top at home and there are a few glitch (bug) with the site that she has her ie7 which do not show up on the browser that i have at work .. the glitch is not important at this point as it is a minor one .. the problem i am seeking an answer to is is there a way to accommodate this ie can i create a style sheet for a versions of ie7 that may operate on different windows OS ..
I am self taught and i am aware that there are areas that i might not have a good knowledge of i like to strive to produce the best i can at every opportunity and learn as much as i can as well ... If anyone can help with this by any means possible i would be grateful
thanks for taking the time to read this posting
Kind regards
barefootedboy
Fri, 2009-02-06 11:59
#1
Quote:i build for firefox
i build for firefox and then correct for ie 6 and ie7 when they go wrong (which is more often then i would like ... but i guess that this is the nature of the beast )
Not necessarily the nature of the beast. While IE always has issues, you can seriously minimise them by writing minimal, semantic markup. Using more markup than necessary, even when it's perfectly valid (we assume you're using the validator and all that) can make a simple job hard. Using the correct element for the job (semantics) often gives people more variety of elements (thus easier CSS styling and fewer classes/id's) then using the same 2 or 3 elements all the time (not saying you do that).
It's also much easier on the developer to develop for everyone at the same time. You're likely spending MORE time fixing stuff for IE than running into the roots right away while still building and tackling them right then and there.
Using a Mac, can you get Parallels? Having all browsers on hand while writing is just a Must.
I test on a Linux box using Virtual Box to hold Windows XP. And so I can test
FF3 on Ubuntu (and the Gnome window system makes differences with FF! regarding things like lengths of form inputs)
Opera on Ubuntu
Konqueror (KHTML engine, related to but no longer the same as the one Safari uses (WebKit)
IE7 on VB Windows XP
Tredosoft IE6 and below (though I have another Virtual Box with a native IE6 and yeah, there's differences but mostly in Javascript and Flash)
Opera 9.6 and 9.5 and 9.27 on XP
FF2 on XP (the other VB has FF3) FF2 has sum bugz that FF3 took care of
Safari-for-Windows (as I understand it there are indeed small differences between this and Saffy-on-Mac)
Chrome (same engine as Saffy but without looking like a Sailor Moon episode)
Lynx
JAWS
I wouldn't say you need to test in all of those. I'd do
every browser you can get your hands on for the Mac
Virtual Box or Virtual PC or Parallels or whatever to get IE6 and 7 (Tredosoft Multiple IE's do not work with Vista, only XP currently)
a text browser like Lynx
if you're really into it, a screen reader. You can get some free ones like Mozilla's FireVox, you already have VoiceOver, the WEBBIE (I don't like this one) or a thumb drive 40 minute demo version of JAWS (Windows only but one of the two most popular screen readers, the other being Window Eyes, also only for Windows).
Re IE7:
So far as I know they are all the same, however other factors may be involved: the laptop's screen resolution, font redering, default font sizes, browser widths, any special settings the user has added, etc. Depending on the bug these are the most likely causes.
Fri, 2009-02-06 14:25
#2
IE 7
Hi there Stomme poes
thanks for the advise , this falls pretty much int what i was thinking.my general practice is to keep it simple ( the less CSS you use the less chance of breaking ) i am not sure if you have had a chance to use joomla .. When developing something for my self i usually have very few problems .. this is for the company that i work at and as the site has been developed so things have changed , new features added others moved you know how it goes ..?
anyway i am working on setting up a better cross browser testing system . it is all new here , i have to make do with what i have got at the moment , i am looking into getting parallels for mac i am just waiting for the approval ... do you have to have the whole windows package , and can you have ie 6 7 and 8 an this ?
thanks you very much for your time it is appreciated ..
kind regards barefootedboy
Fri, 2009-02-06 20:05
#3
I don't know much about
I don't know much about parallels, only that it's some way to let you have a virtual Windows.
For Virtual Box, we bought both the Windows license and the Sun VB (cause it had some extras I needed that the free Ubuntu version didn't have, like USB access so I could listen to JAWS).
I have not downloaded IE8 yet, and do not know what it will do to other IEs.
You can have (with WinXP) IE7 native, and use Tredosoft Multiple IE's for 6, 5.5, 5 and below if you want to go that low : ) Google it, it'll be the first link you find. It's better rendering than the evolt one, I've heard.
If the virtual machine is Vista you're outta luck for now. However at least with VB you can have as many VBs as you want-- each with another copy of Windows (and the license is fine for as many installs as you want). One can have a native IE6 (XP only), one can have a native IE7, and another an IE8.
Anyone surfing with IE8 is asking for crap. It's unfinished, and being developed pretty quickly as we speak. I don't know how fast they're moving with Chrome.
Sat, 2009-02-07 18:09
#4
Are those browser simulators
Are those browser simulators one finds on the web of any value? Or is it really necessary to have the "real thing" to test a page?
Greetings
Sarah
Mon, 2009-02-09 12:57
#5
I've heard people are happy
I've heard people are happy with browsercam, which costs money (so people often do group purchases).
Something like browsershots.org is practically useless for all but the most general layout checks. You can't check functionality, things like different browser widths and how those affect your page, different screen resolutions (you can usually change these on your own computer to simulate someone with low resolution), hover effects, cursor effects, text-enlarge, OS dpi like the Windows "Large Fonts" settings, and of course later on javascript and flash etc.
Plus it's quicker to have all your browsers open while developing instead of making a change, submitting it to some browser site, waiting 5-30 minutes (I always have to wait at least 30 minutes for some reason), and then getting a picture. You should be doing change, f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5, change, f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 etc.
Then do all the regular stuff-- turn images off, turn them on and CSS off, take a look in Lynx and a listen in a screen reader. You should also tab through your site at least once. Is it keyboard accessible? Do your skip links show up? Do they work? In all browsers? (I've noticed FF will bring my cursor to the correct place, IE sometimes does, Safari/Chrome seem to just bring the next tab to source order instead of actually skipping to the next chunk of page... etc)
I play with all my pages (not that I always fix what I see though), sliding things around with my browser window. I can't do that with a static image given to me by a browser site.