Cross-browser / OS website checking

[Vectis]

Having been suffering an odd problem lately with pages occasionally formatting incorrectly on IE6 with screen resolutions of 1024x768 or lower, I went in search of tools to help test my site in a variety of different browsers and resolutions to make sure I'd fixed the problem.

Now there are a number of solutions out there, but the one I found most useful (and FREE :beer1: ) was www.browsershots.org

Give them a URL and choose your preferences (eg resolution/colour depth/java on/off etc.) and this thing will snapshot your page in 15 different browser/op sys combinations.

Cooooool!

[Harrison's Discos]

up to you entirely but i hate the ie6 i use ie7 much more efficient, even though it uses up more memory in cpu :rolleyes:

[Vectis]

:confused:

err... ok... but you can't control which browser or operating system that your site visitors use... which is why your site needs to look right in all the common variants out there.

[Harrison's Discos]

:confused:

err... ok... but you can't control which browser or operating system that your site visitors use... which is why your site needs to look right in all the common variants out there.

point taken :doh:

[Arnold_disco]

up to you entirely but i hate the ie6 i use ie7 much more efficient, even though it uses up more memory in cpu :rolleyes:

I use firefox:D

[Corabar Steve]

That's nice for you, but what relevance does it have to the original post?

[Arnold_disco]

That's nice for you, but what relevance does it have to the original post?

I don't know:(

[Vectis]

Seems a couple folks haven't grasped the reason for the original post.

Apologies if this is an egg-sucking lesson but I wanted it to be clear ;)

The majority of folks who develop their own websites test them in whichever browser is installed on their computer, with or without the common plugins and embedded support for things like javascript, flash etc. enabled.

In fact I'm pretty sure most people only test at whatever screen resolution and colour depth their computer happens to be set to as well.

So let's assume you're running Windows XP with Internet Explorer 7 with all the bells and whistles enabled, at 1920x1200 resolution in 32-bit colour. You're well chuffed (yoof speak I'm assured :rolleyes: ) with your creation and upload it to your website. Then Mr Customer comes along, running Windows 98 with IE6 at 1024x768, 16-bit colour on his nasty old laptop and tries to access your site. Or Mrs Client with her iMac with OSX and Safari at 1280x1024. Or worse, Dr Geek with his Nokia N95 with 640x200 screen with proprietary browser that doesn't support javascript.

See where I'm going with this?

Without access to lots of different browsers on lots of different operating systems running at lots of different resolutions with and without java, flash etc., how can you be sure that your site renders well and is readable & navigable by customers?

Personally I do check my site using a number of browsers, which is why I went for a simple clean layout with minimal javascript and no flash. However, a forum member pointed out that on certain pages my left-hand menu bar was obscuring the text... a bit of digging and that user is running IE5.5 - and this is the only browser where this seems to happen, so now I can go looking for a fix specifically for that browser. Probably a bit of CSS that needs a tweak. But I'm not going to lose much sleep because it was not one of my top 10 pages and IE5.5 is a bit rare these days.

[Penfold42]

However, a forum member pointed out that on certain pages my left-hand menu bar was obscuring the text... a bit of digging and that user is running IE5.5 - and this is the only browser where this seems to happen, so now I can go looking for a fix specifically for that browser. Probably a bit of CSS that needs a tweak. But I'm not going to lose much sleep because it was not one of my top 10 pages and IE5.5 is a bit rare these days.

:Embarassed:

...it's still doing it.....am i being a lame brain then or what......:o :)

[Vectis]

Actually you're showing up as IE6 now... odd.

Still working on it...

It's restricted to a handful of pages (quote section) and it's something to do with the overall fixed width segments of the page.

It's an easy fix but it messes with the formatting so I need to play a bit more.


Ta for looking!
:beer1:

[Penfold42]

Actually you're showing up as IE6 now... odd.

Still working on it...

It's restricted to a handful of pages (quote section) and it's something to do with the overall fixed width segments of the page.

It's an easy fix but it messes with the formatting so I need to play a bit more.


Ta for looking!
:beer1:

I'm at home now but with the same laptop....if that helps......:)

[Vectis]

Nah mate... job for tomorrow.

Too tired.

Just going to trawl a few threads then it's off to bed!! :)