who uses virtual pc for testing webpages

[josph]

Just wondering if anyone uses Virtual PC for testing different browsers.

Is is a good idea for people who can't work with, or don't want to work with
multiple real PCs ?

 

[rf]

Just wondering if anyone uses Virtual PC for testing different browsers.

Is is a good idea for people who can't work with, or don't want to work with
multiple real PCs ?

What's wrong with multiple browsers on the same physical PC?

Cheers
Richard.

 

[josph]

What's wrong with multiple browsers on the same physical PC?

Cheers
Richard.

I'm working on a laptop with a 12.1 screen. I don't want to change video
modes, my laptop video card and screen don't allow much changes. Also
perhaps VPC will allow me to see view my pages in a higher resolution than
my laptop is capable of.

*Change colour depth*
Not sure if this would work.

*Change screen resoloution*
Need to test the range from 800 x 600 upwards my laptop only works well with
one resolution.

*Testing linux browsers*

*Different versions of IE*
Perhaps there is a way of installing different versions of IE on the same XP
install, but i'm not sure if i want to interfere or hack my installation of
XP

 

[Nico Schuyt]

Perhaps there is a way of installing different versions of IE on the
same XP install, but i'm not sure if i want to interfere or hack my
installation of XP

Just what you need:
http://www.insert-title.com/web_design/?page=articles/dev/multi_IE
Works perfectly for me (IE4, IE5, IE55 and IE6 on XP)
Nico

 

[josph]

Just what you need:
http://www.insert-title.com/web_design/?page=articles/dev/multi_IE
Works perfectly for me (IE4, IE5, IE55 and IE6 on XP)
Nico

Thanks ! The article has a link to http://browsers.evolt.org/ where I can
download different browser versions. (that was going to be my next question)

I still think i can find good use for my copy of Virtual PC. I'm not sure I
want to trust my XP with the above mentioned hack - I will install it on a
Virtual PC. Also being able to test Linux browsers on V. PC is nice as well.

I still have the problem off wanting to test different screen resolutions,
V. PC may help. To clarify, I just want to see how my web designs will look
at a higher or lower resolution without changing my laptops display mode.

Will the fonts sizes look good, will there be a lot of white space, will the
user have to scroll horizontally, will some of the elements be squashed
together ???

 

[Nico Schuyt]

I still have the problem off wanting to test different screen
resolutions, V. PC may help. To clarify, I just want to see how my
web designs will look at a higher or lower resolution without
changing my laptops display mode.

Will the fonts sizes look good, will there be a lot of white space,
will the user have to scroll horizontally, will some of the elements
be squashed together ???

Better: Don't design for a special window size or screen resolution.
Read: http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?AnySizeDesign
Good luck!
Nico

 

[josph]

Better: Don't design for a special window size or screen resolution.
Read: http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?AnySizeDesign
Good luck!
Nico

I *will* be aiming for a range of screen resolutions, 800x600 upwards. I
would like to be easily able to test as much of that range as possible.

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Quoth the raven named josph:

I *will* be aiming for a range of screen resolutions, 800x600 upwards. I
would like to be easily able to test as much of that range as possible.

Stop thinking "screen resolution." It is unimportant. Think "browser
window size" instead. My browser window is seldom wider than 800px,
and frequently smaller, but my monitor is quite larger than that.

Unless you are displaying large photographs, your pages should flow
and resize themselves no matter what the size of the visitor's browser
window.

 

[Ethan Schlenker]

Will the fonts sizes look good, will there be a lot of white space, will
the

user have to scroll horizontally, will some of the elements be squashed
together ???

Fixed vs Fluid design debate aside...

I like using VPC to test, as it gives me a clean OS testbed to use.
Standard font installs, easy to change resolution and color depth,
alternate operating system options, and so on. VPC offers a nice layer
where I can mess with settings without interfering with my own work
environment.

Though for a quick preview of your site on many many browsers the very
handy http://www.browsercam.com does the trick (and offers a free trial).

Ethan

 

[Bruce Grubb]

Just wondering if anyone uses Virtual PC for testing different browsers.

Is is a good idea for people who can't work with, or don't want to work with
multiple real PCs ?

Now why on earth would you even want to do this? HTML 4.0.1 is a STANDARD.
As long as you write to the standard (opposed to exploiting bugs or quirks
in Netscape and Explorer) you don't NEED to go testing your HTML on
multiple browsers.

The best tool to make sure your HMTL is to the standard is to make use of
the HTML Tidy Library Project <http://tidy.sourceforge.net/>

The Mac version of HTML Tidy is typical of the project. Not only will the
program clean up the HTML for you but it will tell you *which* HTML you are
using.

 

[Mark Parnell]

Now why on earth would you even want to do this? HTML 4.0.1 is a STANDARD.
As long as you write to the standard (opposed to exploiting bugs or quirks
in Netscape and Explorer) you don't NEED to go testing your HTML on
multiple browsers.

Unfortunately, due to various bugs and other rendering differences in
the different browsers, you *do* need to test it in multiple browsers.
Perhaps not the way it should be, but that's the world we live in.

 

[Cameron]

Now why on earth would you even want to do this? HTML 4.0.1 is a STANDARD.
As long as you write to the standard (opposed to exploiting bugs or quirks
in Netscape and Explorer) you don't NEED to go testing your HTML on
multiple browsers.

The best tool to make sure your HMTL is to the standard is to make use of
the HTML Tidy Library Project <http://tidy.sourceforge.net/>

The Mac version of HTML Tidy is typical of the project. Not only will the
program clean up the HTML for you but it will tell you *which* HTML you are
using.

Not at all true, and hell most people know that you definatly SHOULD
test on as many browsers as possible, different browsers sometimes have
little things can can cause the page to display in an odd manner, e.g. I
have found before that some browsers, if you do...

<td>
content
</td>

you will get a new line under content, so you have to do

<td>content</td> with them

fact remains is that some browsers do have little bugs like this and
it's the web designers job to better compensate for them without causing
issues with other browsers.

~Cameron

 

[Toby A Inkster]

As long as you write to the standard (opposed to exploiting bugs or quirks
in Netscape and Explorer)

Do you think these two are mutually exclusive? The following page:

http://www.goddamn.co.uk/tobyink/scratch/example

is 3 lines of validated HTML with no CSS and no Javascript. Simple enough,
right? But it will instantly crash about 85% of your visitors' browsers.
Go ahead: visit it in IE 5+ for Windows. Just make sure you've saved any
work you were doing first.

Just because your HTML is valid, doesn't mean it will work everywhere.
Although it means that is *should* work everywhere -- which is a good
start!

Conversely it is possible to build an invalid page that works in all/most
browsers, but you'd need to keep testing it whenever a new browser came
out, just in case.

 

[Bruce Grubb]

Unfortunately, due to various bugs and other rendering differences in
the different browsers, you *do* need to test it in multiple browsers.
Perhaps not the way it should be, but that's the world we live in.

This is horsepucky for several reasons.

1) Bugs rarely if ever effect STANDARD HTML. They are however do allow
*nonstandard* (ie easily breakable) things to be done. Of coure whent he
bug is fixed the *nonstandard* HTML displays like crap. Standard HTML the
other other hand displays EXACTLY the way it did.

2) rendering is illrelevent.

The sooner the dimwits that call themselves HTML writers understand HTML is
NOT nor NEVER will be a page layout format the better it will be for
everyone else.

Any modern brower out there is HTML 4.01 complient. Now granted CSS
support on some of them is not the best in the world but even iCab will do
most of CSS1 intellegently and ignore the rest.

I challange someone to show a *valid* (ie W3c complient) online HTML file
doing something improper on any non beta browser. You can even use the
Wayback Machine if you so wish.

 

[Bruce Grubb]

Do you think these two are mutually exclusive? The following page:

http://www.goddamn.co.uk/tobyink/scratch/example

is 3 lines of validated HTML with no CSS and no Javascript. Simple enough,
right? But it will instantly crash about 85% of your visitors' browsers.
Go ahead: visit it in IE 5+ for Windows. Just make sure you've saved any
work you were doing first.

This is because the page is trying to do browser detection and hides it as
a comment so it passes through the W3C validtors. Since HTML is supposed
to be INDEPENDENT of what complient browser you use any browser detection
code is an automatic No-no. Come back when you have a REAL example (ie NO
browers dectention commands what so ever).

 

[Cameron]

This is because the page is trying to do browser detection and hides it as
a comment so it passes through the W3C validtors. Since HTML is supposed
to be INDEPENDENT of what complient browser you use any browser detection
code is an automatic No-no. Come back when you have a REAL example (ie NO
browers dectention commands what so ever).

Come back when you know how to do web dev, and that means knowing that
web pages must be tested in as many browsers as possible, try writing a
page wanting it to be compatable with lynx and not testing it in lynx,
that is presuming you even know what lynx is.

~Cameron

 

[Bruce Grubb]

Now why on earth would you even want to do this? HTML 4.0.1 is a STANDARD.

As long as you write to the standard (opposed to exploiting bugs or quirks
in Netscape and Explorer) you don't NEED to go testing your HTML on
multiple browsers.

The best tool to make sure your HMTL is to the standard is to make use of
the HTML Tidy Library Project <http://tidy.sourceforge.net/>

The Mac version of HTML Tidy is typical of the project. Not only will the
program clean up the HTML for you but it will tell you *which* HTML you are
using.

Not at all true, and hell most people know that you definatly SHOULD
test on as many browsers as possible, different browsers sometimes have
little things can can cause the page to display in an odd manner, e.g. I
have found before that some browsers, if you do...

<td>
content
</td>

you will get a new line under content, so you have to do

<td>content</td> with them

fact remains is that some browsers do have little bugs like this and
it's the web designers job to better compensate for them without causing
issues with other browsers.[/QUOTE]

This a page layout issue which HTML was NEVER designed to address. Besides
some versions of HTML Tidy do NOT like breaking tags like this. For
example, Balthisar Tidy is unbelievably tempermental about this sort of
thing and is insanly sensative to 'improper' characters to the point you
wonder why it generates the errors it does. If it can validate on
Balthisar Tidy it will validate on nearly anything else.

 

[Bruce Grubb]

This is because the page is trying to do browser detection and hides it as
a comment so it passes through the W3C validtors. Since HTML is supposed
to be INDEPENDENT of what complient browser you use any browser detection
code is an automatic No-no. Come back when you have a REAL example (ie NO
browers dectention commands what so ever).

Come back when you know how to do web dev, and that means knowing that
web pages must be tested in as many browsers as possible, try writing a
page wanting it to be compatable with lynx and not testing it in lynx,
that is presuming you even know what lynx is.[/QUOTE]

HELLO! HMTL is PLATFORM INDEPENDENT. That means that HTML written to a
certain spec (2.0, 3.2 4.01) will work fine on a browser that supports that
spec (back compatablity for a certain spec is a given).

One of the key things to following the 4.01 spec is the use of the Alt tag
something that is nearly manditory if you are dealing with someone using
Lynx. Nevermind that http://www.html4.com/ goes into long detail about
most problems are do to people NOT following the specs but writing to a
collection of browers. So write to the blasted spec.

 

[Toby A Inkster]

HELLO! HMTL is PLATFORM INDEPENDENT. That means that HTML written to a
certain spec (2.0, 3.2 4.01) will work fine on a browser that supports that
spec (back compatablity for a certain spec is a given).

You seem to be assuming that browsers perfectly support the specs. They
don't.

 

[William Tasso]

...
One of the key things to following the 4.01 spec is the use of the
Alt tag ...

?? fatigue?