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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 ;-)
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