I’ve got to a point working on my current Website design project where I’m needing to
- test the code in a variety of browsers
- keep track of which browsers still have issues with the code
Toolbar
So I took my own advice and created a new toolbar which I now have as part of my main toolbar, with links to the 15 web browsers I currently have installed, based on the Google Analytics stats for the website.:
- Firefox 1.0.8
- Firefox 1.5.0.10
- Firefox 2.0.0.13
- IE 5.01
- IE 5.5
- IE 6.0
- IE 7.0
- Opera 7.5
- Opera 8.0
- Opera 8.5
- Opera 9.27
- Netscape 7.2
- Netscape 8.1
- Netscape 9.0.0.6
- Safari 3.1
The “Browsers” link with the folder icon (that you can see in the screenshot) is simply a shortcut which will immediately open the folder containing the links to all these browsers.
Even though this now takes up a fair chunk of the main toolbar I’m finding it invaluable for quickly opening whatever browser I need next without having to scrabble with Start menu … Programs … Internet … Browsers … etc. I can always remove the toolbar when I’m done with this part of the project.
Keeping track of issues
The next thing I need to do is keep track of which browsers I’ve tested the code in and whether there were any issues. So I’ve thrown together a spreadsheet to do that very thing. I have a rows for each of the files, and columns for the filename, whether it validates and whether it works as expected or not.
The key that I’m using is:
- A – OK
- B – Minor flaws
- C – Major flaws
- XXXX – Unusable
I’ve updated this key since I first blogged about it, as I needed to distinguish between minor and major flaws. I’m still using XXXX as it sticks out like a sore thumb.
I’m aiming to get everything marked as either A or B in the majority of browsers, certainly the A-Class browsers (Firefox 2, IE 6, IE 7, Opera 9 and Safari).
Needless to say, as tests go so far I’m having issues with Firefox 1.0, Netscape 7 and Netscape 8 (which both use the same rendering engine as Firefox 1.0), Internet Explorer 5.01 and Internet Explorer 5.5.
Oh well, on with the testing …
