[css-d] Debugging IE
I have been using http://ipinfo.info/netrenderer/index.php for hacking IE6 and IE7 into submission. In general I develop on linux with Chrome. Then check appearance on Firefox and Safari in Mac, which (usually but not always) look much the same. I have IE8 running on an old XP box. So I tehn use my own Windows box to check IE8. At that point I use netrender to test IE7 and IE6. Those two almost always require adjustments, or conditional statements. But I just noticed today the visual output I get at netrender for IE8 does not match the display I get when running IE8 directly, on XP box (whose browser has been updated to IE8). So that makes me wonder if netrenderer is worth anything at all. I could try to set up virtual OS instances with vmware. Perhaps that's my next step. But now I wonder if that output will be reliable. Perhaps a developer really needs multiple boxes, each with its own OS. What is your take? also, I (think) I have noticed IE6 on old low-resolution laptops sometimes looks substantially different than IE6 running on an XP box plugged in to a high-resolution monitor. So perhaps a person needs an N cubed testing routine: N-OS systems times N-resolutions times N-browsers. What is the professional debugging way proceed? -- /* Colin (Sandy) Pittendrigh --oO0 */ __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Debugging IE
On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 10:47, Colin (Sandy) Pittendrigh sandy.pittendr...@gmail.com wrote: also, I (think) I have noticed IE6 on old low-resolution laptops sometimes looks substantially different than IE6 running on an XP box plugged in to a high-resolution monitor. So perhaps a person needs an N cubed testing routine: N-OS systems times N-resolutions times N-browsers. What is the professional debugging way proceed? I use vmware for IE 6 and 7 running in XP. Some differences I've seen between computers running IE: 1. Font smoothing: if they have font smoothing (anti-aliasing) turned off or set up wrong it can affect the display. Sometimes it can change how wide text is and result in words wrapping differently. 2. Different fonts installed. Some fonts from MS (like Arial Unicode) aren't always installed, but if they are, they can sometimes supersede the normal Arial. These fonts sometimes have slightly different metrics. 3. Different DPI settings: Different DPI settings mean font sizes measured in PX vs EMs vs percent will vary. 4. Slight differences in IE versions with different bugs (the AlphaImageLoader seems to have regressed in XP SP3 IE6, for example. I had major issues with it crashing my browser but my coworker with SP2 couldn't reproduce the problem). These factors also affect the cross-platform nature of development; that is, the font metrics on Windows will be different than Mac and thus the problems aren't strictly limited to Windows versions. The professional way to proceed is to determine (or estimate) the cost of testing yet another combination of hardware, software, settings, browsers, fonts, etc versus the benefits of getting the design exactly right for that user. Probably most of the time if you can make the site look good in Windows, Linux, and Mac then it'll be fine for most of the other settings. Do your best to make your designs flexible so that even extreme cases degrade gracefully. But remember that you first have to serve the majority of your users so spend most of your time doing that. (Side note: some people will compare supporting old or odd browsers to supporting disabled users. Technically the work involved is often similar, however on one hand people with odd systems are able to upgrade/change but disabled users usually can't become un-disabled. So you might find that you are spending a lot of time supporting blind users while spending zero time supporting IE6 users, even if those two populations have the same size and potential revenue) Mark __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Debugging IE
On 1/5/11 10:47 AM, Colin (Sandy) Pittendrigh wrote: I have been using http://ipinfo.info/netrenderer/index.php for hacking IE6 and IE7 into submission. What is the professional debugging way proceed? I have no idea. But /I have the feeling/ that sense of humor is a primary prerequisite... and having these close at hand help: 1/ on having Layout http://www.satzansatz.de/cssd/onhavinglayout.html on hand helps. 2/ IETester http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage 3/ IE Standalone http://tredosoft.com/IE7_standalone Best, ~d -- http://chelseacreekstudio.com/ http://chelseacreekstudio.com/fa/ __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Debugging IE
Mark Richards wrote: (Side note: some people will compare supporting old or odd browsers to supporting disabled users. Technically the work involved is often similar, however on one hand people with odd systems are able to upgrade/change but disabled users usually can't become un-disabled. So you might find that you are spending a lot of time supporting blind users while spending zero time supporting IE6 users, even if those two populations have the same size and potential revenue) Just keep in mind that many IE6 users cannot upgrade/change courtesy of corporate policies such as enterprise software that only works with IE6, it's not their computer (they use one at the local library), etc. -- David gn...@hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
