Re: [WSG] Programmer's Challenge [Virus checkedAU]
And for extra points, the ability to specify an x-y screen coordinate to place the cursor at, initiating a mouseover event before taking the screenshot?? Then you could say place the mouse at 210,452 (or whatever) and see the mouseover effect (:hover) of an element on your page to make sure that works as well. you might need to allow different coords per browser as well, because they all have different amounts of chrome, will lay the page out differently etc. Beau Nick Lo said: Since it appears that Browsercam is in the lead so far. How about shifting the challenge to coming up some Browsercam competition (Australian perhaps?) that does show below the fold, etc... How about it; BrowserCamOz or something equally original!? Just a late afternoon thought. Nick The best shot we have to try is Browsercam, other than that, there really isn't much more possible to do... * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ * -- Beau Lebens Information Architect [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dented Reality - www.dentedreality.com.au Information Architecture, Usability, Web Development * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ *
RE: [WSG] Programmer's Challenge [Virus checkedAU]
Sounds like another job for Google's pigeons... http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html Cheers Mark -- Mark Stanton Technical Director Gruden Pty Ltd Tel: 9956 6388 Mob: 0410 458 201 Fax: 9956 8433 http://www.gruden.com * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ *
Re: [WSG] Programmer's Challenge [Virus checkedAU]
This email is to be read subject to the disclaimer below. Peter, What you'll need: 1. One (possibly obsolete) PC for each version of Internet Explorer you want to test on. You can arrange the monitors in a semicircle around the desk or possibly use a KVM switch. Or you could use Virtual PC I suppose. Mozilla, NS4 and others can run on one of the Windows machines. You might also want to set up a Linux box for Konqueror. 2. Some means of remote procedure call. This could be SSH or a web service. It needs to be available on each of the testing machines. 3. An HTML form with a drop-down list (multi-select would be nice) for the browser and a text box for the URL. 4. Backend code that will start up the selected browser(s) with the URL in the text box. This would be the easiest solution provided that every browser you want to test on will accept an URL as a command-line argument. Then you can just execute a command like C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe http://www.yoursite.com/; on every machine. This is theoretically possible. Writing an application that will accurately emulate every single rendering bug for even a single browser is pretty much impossible -- especially if the said browser is Internet Explorer. So you must run the original browser, just like browsercam does. Launching the browsers this way will let you scroll, click and hover and yet the process is automated so you can launch an URL on all your browsers in one place. ...And you'll have a healthy glow from all those monitors ;-) HTH, Vik -- Viktor Radnai Web Developer Business Innovation Online Ernst Young Australia http://www.eyware.com/ http://www.eyonline.com/ Direct: +612 9248 4361 Fax: +612 9248 4073 Mobile: +61408 662 546 -- Disclaimer: I'm not going to code this beast for you ;-) NOTICE - This communication contains information which is confidential and the copyright of Ernst Young or a third party. If you are not the intended recipient of this communication please delete and destroy all copies and telephone Ernst Young on 1800 655 717 immediately. If you are the intended recipient of this communication you should not copy, disclose or distribute this communication without the authority of Ernst Young. Any views expressed in this Communication are those of the individual sender, except where the sender specifically states them to be the views of Ernst Young. Except as required at law, Ernst Young does not represent, warrant and/or guarantee that the integrity of this communication has been maintained nor that the communication is free of errors, virus, interception or interference. Liability limited by the Accountants Scheme, approved under the Professional Standards Act 1994 (NSW) * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ *
Re: [WSG] Programmer's Challenge [Virus checkedAU]
You hit my mental nail on the head Ryan. Peter On 03/02/2004, at 3:14 PM, Ryan Christie wrote: I think that what was more in our minds was a browser that could switch rendering engines on the fly in one window. For example, in the famous FB.7 release, if you navigate to a website that has different CSS styles available to be loaded, you can switch styles using an icon that pops up in the lower left-hand corner (for example, http://www.theward.net, or http://www.texturizer.net/firebird) ... If there was an application out there that I could use to switch from rendering engine to rendering engine, browser to browser ... I would galdly pay over US$100 for the convienience. I currently have all the separate browsers installed. Saying it's a pain in the ass to constantly check between 4 versions of IE, 3 versions of Netscape, 3 versions of Opera, Mozilla 1.5, Firebird.7, reboot into Linux, and check all the browsers in there is a HANEOUS understatement. --Ryan http://www.theward.net
Re: [WSG] Programmer's Challenge [Virus checkedAU]
On Tuesday, February 3, 2004, at 03:14 PM, Ryan Christie wrote: I think that what was more in our minds was a browser that could switch rendering engines on the fly in one window. For example, in the famous FB.7 release, if you navigate to a website that has different CSS styles available to be loaded, you can switch styles using an icon that pops up in the lower left-hand corner (for example, http://www.theward.net, or http://www.texturizer.net/firebird) ... If there was an application out there that I could use to switch from rendering engine to rendering engine, browser to browser ... I would galdly pay over US$100 for the convienience. Wow -- a whole $100 for something that would save you endless hours of work??? Big spender! I just can't see it being possible, unless all browser manufacturers released the source code of their rendering engine (not a chance in the case of IE). Even if they did, there would still be inconsistencies due to the fact that the rendering engines aren't operating in their intended environment. What it seems you're asking for is a plug-in for something like Mozilla which can be set to badly render web pages with bugs (like IE's box model), emulating those rendering engines. Again, the problem here is that you aren't testing against the browser, you're testing against the plug-in's ability to emulate that browser's rendering engine. And it's not just the rendering engine that needs to be tested -- it's the UI (IE's lack of text sizing for px and pt fonts for example), and truckloads of underlying code modules (PNG, JavaScript, the list goes on). The absolute best possible scenario I can think of (and even then, I have no idea if it can be done) is if you loaded everything onto a Mac running OSX, Virtual PC (for the Windows browsers), an XWindows style emulator (for Linux GUI browsers), then came up with an AppleScript for your default browser (eg Safari) which opened up a new window in all installed browsers, using the URL of your current Safari window. You can then systematically look at all the open windows, click around a little, then close them when you're done. EVEN THEN, it's not perfect... you're not testing the windows linux browsers in a perfect environment (Virtual PC XWindows are emulators, not physical machines, and are extremely slow), and there's the fact that the Multiple IE thing isn't perfect at all. I'd never say never, but I will say 'dream on' :) Justin French * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ *
RE: [WSG] Programmer's Challenge [Virus checkedAU]
I don't think its entirely possible to have a website, look and feel exactly the same on every browser, on every OS... Its never been done with anything - software never looks or behaves the same way (unless its entire engine is ported over - ie. Games) Because OS's have their defining features, they strive to be different. From that, we cannot expect to ever be able to make a singular website in HTML, and CSS which will look identical on every OS and every Browser... The best shot we have to try is Browsercam, other than that, there really isn't much more possible to do... - Chris Stratford [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.neester.com - -Original Message- From: Justin French [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2004 4:12 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [WSG] Programmer's Challenge [Virus checkedAU] On Tuesday, February 3, 2004, at 03:14 PM, Ryan Christie wrote: I think that what was more in our minds was a browser that could switch rendering engines on the fly in one window. For example, in the famous FB.7 release, if you navigate to a website that has different CSS styles available to be loaded, you can switch styles using an icon that pops up in the lower left-hand corner (for example, http://www.theward.net, or http://www.texturizer.net/firebird) ... If there was an application out there that I could use to switch from rendering engine to rendering engine, browser to browser ... I would galdly pay over US$100 for the convienience. Wow -- a whole $100 for something that would save you endless hours of work??? Big spender! I just can't see it being possible, unless all browser manufacturers released the source code of their rendering engine (not a chance in the case of IE). Even if they did, there would still be inconsistencies due to the fact that the rendering engines aren't operating in their intended environment. What it seems you're asking for is a plug-in for something like Mozilla which can be set to badly render web pages with bugs (like IE's box model), emulating those rendering engines. Again, the problem here is that you aren't testing against the browser, you're testing against the plug-in's ability to emulate that browser's rendering engine. And it's not just the rendering engine that needs to be tested -- it's the UI (IE's lack of text sizing for px and pt fonts for example), and truckloads of underlying code modules (PNG, JavaScript, the list goes on). The absolute best possible scenario I can think of (and even then, I have no idea if it can be done) is if you loaded everything onto a Mac running OSX, Virtual PC (for the Windows browsers), an XWindows style emulator (for Linux GUI browsers), then came up with an AppleScript for your default browser (eg Safari) which opened up a new window in all installed browsers, using the URL of your current Safari window. You can then systematically look at all the open windows, click around a little, then close them when you're done. EVEN THEN, it's not perfect... you're not testing the windows linux browsers in a perfect environment (Virtual PC XWindows are emulators, not physical machines, and are extremely slow), and there's the fact that the Multiple IE thing isn't perfect at all. I'd never say never, but I will say 'dream on' :) Justin French * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ *
