So, at least for the site I’ve been working on, cross browser verification has been troublesome. This is probably the worst case scenario since it is javascript heavy, has a complex Dom, and has themes (34 and growing)…
So – how have I been testing it? (if I’m missing anything – please let me know!!!)
Well first, I have 4 browsers installed on my machine:
- Firefox 2.0 : http://en.www.mozilla.com/en/firefox/
- Safari for windows : http://www.apple.com/safari/ (firefox is better for developing, but Safari just tends to look really good and work really well)
- IE7 : http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/ie/getitnow.mspx
- IE6 standalone http://browsers.evolt.org/download.php?/ie/32bit/standalone/ie6eolas_nt.zip
- (you’ll also need to follow these instructions to get cookies working – which is essential if you have any sort of login feature) :
- Ie6 standalone cookies: http://remysharp.com/2007/03/19/how-to-get-cookies-working-in-ie6-stand-alone/
Beyond that, there are 2 other things I found very useful, each corresponding to the 2 things that are needed for cross browser testing: Styles & Behaviour
1- BrowserCam : http://www.browsercam.com/ It takes screenshots of your webpage using a whole range of browsers on a whole range of platforms. If you’re stingy you can get a demo account, but it’s worth signing up for at least a month. This helps ensure cross browser compatibility for styles.
2 – Selenium : http://www.openqa.org/selenium/ Selenium test drives your apps using javascript. It’s really ingenuous. You write (or record using Selenium IDE) scripts to perform actions, like type data, click, drag and drop, etc. You can also create assertions on page titles, dom elements, page contents, etc. If you have a javascript heavy site, Selenium is a must!
You can write selenium scripts in a variety of languages, and run it from either the front end or the backend. That is, you can drive it from a local server and test any site on the web, or, using selenium on rails, http://www.openqa.org/selenium-on-rails/ write some tests, and then just run them by visiting (test.myapp.com/selenium). I actually recommend the former, after having tried both. I’ll write more about selenium sometime later, as there is lots to cover.
I’m putting together a list of the other tools I use (plugins, etc) and will post that shortly.
