design
Testing Designs - Cross Platform
I’m a huge Apple guy, and I love Firefox 3.0 on the Mac.
But, due to the work I do, I find that I’m always having to fire up the PC in the office to test my CSS is working ok in IE. There’s even issues with Firefox on different platforms too (mainly due to font-rendering).
So, wouldn’t it be nice if there was somewhere you could just type in your URL and see screenshots of a load of different browsers?
Well, you’re in luck! Browsershots is a free service which lets you do just that.
Browsershots makes screenshots of your web design in different browsers. It is a free open-source online service created by Johann C. Rocholl. When you submit your web address, it will be added to the job queue. A number of distributed computers will open your website in their browser. Then they will make screenshots and upload them to the central server here.
There’s also a paid ‘priority service‘ for those who want their screenshots immediately.
It’s a nice service for quickly checking there’s no obvious errors with your layouts, but for in-depth testing, unfortunately there’s no real substitute for using the browser itself. Let’s just hope to God that Microsoft on day makes a decent standards-compliant browser!
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7 comments for “Testing Designs - Cross Platform”
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I find the best way to test on Windows is with Remote Desktop. The RDC 2 Beta is incredibly efficient, with next to no RAM usage.
It also means that you can have an “always on” Windows PC at work, and still test when you’re at home.
I guess the only disadvantage is that you run the risk of breaking your mac when things get ugly
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Yeah, I think RDC is going to be the way that I go to… I can install a VPN Server on an Ubuntu box for Linux testing too.
(Not that many other developers do linux testing… but hey, why not!?)
I’ve tried to use Browsershots, but as you said. I really want to go more in-depth than a screenshot. I use VMware Fusion for this actually. Much easier to go with a virtual pc on the mac instead of doing the whole bootcamp thing.
I signed up for paid service and there was no difference in speed of the processing. It’s good to see rendering on IE5, but it’s not any help to debug my AJAX or JavaScript animation.
Elliot,
We started a new service about 4 weeks ago that is still in a beta mode which applies to the topic being discussed here. I did not want to ‘comment spam’ your blog, but it directly addresses Frank’s need for live testing - I looked for an email address to send this to you privately, but I did not see one. You have the website from the form I just filled out - check it out and if you think it is worthy, we would appreciate any mention as we are just trying to build some exposure. We provide 5 minutes of testing for anybody for free as long as we have enough capacity, so you can try out as many 5 minute testing sessions as you want. If you want to try a longer test, send me the username you register under and I will add some credits to your account so you can fully try it out. BTW, I see you are a Flickr user - we just added the capability to save screenshots (to document issues you see) - the screenshots are saved t o Flickr using their API.
Hey Ken,
Thanks for dropping by.
Don’t worry, that’s not at all comment spam, you’re telling us more about the service I was writing about.
I’d love to test your new VPN service! I’ll register and send you an email, maybe write up a review here when I’m done.
Thanks for the heads-up.
We would love to hear your feedback. Send me your user name after you register.
Thanks
Ken