[Techtalk] cross-platform, cross-browser testing

Rachel McConnell rachel at xtreme.com
Thu Feb 20 19:43:55 EST 2003


Depending on your expected user base, version 6 browsers may not be
sufficient.  Here are the only general statistics on browser usage I can
find (there used to be a site that tracked a lot of this, i think called
browserwatch, but it doesn't appear to exist any more alas).

http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/stat.htm
http://www.thecounter.com/stats/

None of this helps with HOW to test unfortunately.  I hope you have a
tech audience who get the very latest browsers so you don't need to do
so much of this!

rachel

-----Original Message-----
From: techtalk-admin at linuxchix.org [mailto:techtalk-admin at linuxchix.org]
On Behalf Of Kai MacTane
Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2003 1:01 PM
To: TechTalk -- LinuxChix
Subject: Re: [Techtalk] cross-platform, cross-browser testing


At 2/20/03 12:31 PM , Mary wrote:

>IE6 has a fairly sophisticated renderer and normally pages that work on

>Mozilla work on IE6, so you *may* be able to just occasionally test on 
>IE6.

I recall I had a recent testing issue with something that rendered just 
fine on (I think it was) Mozilla, but barfed horribly in IE. [rummages 
through wetware memory for a while...] Got it. It was a page someone I
know 
had done. It involved one large table (about 2x2, IIRC), with each cell 
containing a smaller table of roughly 6x4 cells (varying numbers of 
columns, but pretty much always 4 rows).

The page had been created in Netscape Composer (this person isn't a
heavy 
HTML person, or a geek at all; she runs a jewelry- and bead-making 
business, and simply has the Web site to sell her stuff). Practically
every 
<TABLE> and <TD> tag had a WIDTH attribute, and a few of the WIDTHs were

greater than 100%. Also, some WIDTHs were percentages, while others were

absolute pixel values.

Having a Mac and Netscape, she tested in that. It looked fine. It also 
looked fine in Mozilla on Windows 98 (my default Web platform). In IE
5.01 
for Windows (and presumably for Mac, and possibly other version
numbers), 
however, it was a bleeding wreck -- the page tried to expand to a few 
thousand pixels wide, everything was out of place.

When I found the problem, I was kind of surprised that it had rendered
at 
all reasonably in *any* browser, honestly. But I thought I'd throw it
out 
there as an example of something that would display fine on one platform

(of Mozilla/IE only), but not on the other.

Also, it was a bit weird -- I thought Mozilla was more picky about
compliance?

                                                 --Kai MacTane
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"And when I squinted/The world seemed rose-tinted;
  Angels appeared to descend..."
                                                 --Depeche Mode,
                                                  "Waiting for the
Night"

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