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TSx · Jun 16, 2004, 04:58 PM

The site I'm working on is www.imagelink.org and is an image hosting website. It's been complete and functional on PC's for a while now, however I'm still unsure if it functions right and looks good on a Mac. Unfortunately the person that had been helping me debug for the past few weeks has gone and got married and won't be back for 6 weeks, but he was able to tell me this was the place to be for mac users, and that I might ask here for some feedback.

If you sign up on the site, you can use the promotional code, 'macnn' to get an increased free account.

Basically, what I would like to find out is how the site looks in Safari, Mac IE, and Mac Firefox as those are the main 3 browsers we've had users from. I know of some specific bugs but I'm sure there are other things that need to be fixed.

We just put a new system in place on the 'my images' page (must be logged in to see) that should make it functional for all users. Before the customized right click menu wouldn't display in Safari, but now with the compatibility modes it should work good.

I'm open to all criticism regarding the site as well, and I'm hoping people are able to help me find the remaining bugs. I also hope people will like and use the site, as we spent quite a bit of time working on it.

Thanks in advance.

Starry Night · Jun 16, 2004, 06:25 PM

I think people might feel leary of having to "sign up" for anything, and equally cautious that this might be a spam ruse

TSx · Jun 16, 2004, 08:21 PM

It's definitely not spam...I'm honestly looking for some help here, as I have no way to test my site on a mac. We don't give out e-mails or anything...the only reason we have it is for account authorization.

Unfortunately I can't find a mac for $200-300 or I'd just buy one to test on, but they're so damn expensive so that's out of the question.

Edit: heh, it appears at least a few people have already signed up from MacNN since they've used the promo code...I guess either they don't want to post or they didn't find any bugs...

registered_user · Jun 16, 2004, 08:45 PM

http://www.danvine.com/icapture/

TSx · Jun 16, 2004, 08:46 PM

That site doesn't work for areas you have to log into. I've used it for the general layout and things but it can't test functionality. The advanced editing scripts are what we're the most unsure about.

TSx · Jun 20, 2004, 09:56 AM

Heh, seen at least a few people sign up but still no response -=o\ I'd appreciate any feedback as to whether or not the site works smoothly on mac's.

registered_user · Jun 20, 2004, 02:43 PM

If no one is complaining, it's probably fine. If your mark-up validates, it's also probably fine. If your mark-up is designed to work in IE 6, then you'll probably have issues. Check it in a Mozilla browser in Winders, and if it looks right in that, it should be ok in Safari.

If you're still desperate, temporarily disable your log-in scheme and use iCapture. Alternatively, Copy the source from your protected pages into a new html document and check that.

As for functionality, server-side will work the same because, obviously, it's the server doing the work. I wouldn't use client-side scripting if it's likely to cause the page to cease functioning, and if you have, you may consider changing that. I've read that about 10% of web users browse with javascript off anyway, so that's worth keeping in mind.

Synotic · Jun 20, 2004, 04:15 PM

I gave it a shot... i was able to sign up and login succesfully using Safari, I was also able to upload an image successfully. I didn't notice any rendering errors.

Same thing with Firefox, rendered pretty much identically, I was also able to upload an image.

I tried to load the page in ie:mac and this is where I experienced problems. It didn't display any of the sidebars. Once I tried to resize the window, it immediately hanged and then crashed the browser. I realized that I had temporarily disabled JavaScript, I tried again and was able to successfully login and upload another image.

Just taking a quick look at the code, it seems that JavaScript is being used rather unnecessarily and makes the site completely unusable if you can't view any of the menus. Are you writing the JavaScript using PHP? If so then you already have all the data you need via PHP and can just write it straight into the page... if you keep it all server-side then you can reduce the reliance on JavaScript.

safari image
firefox image

ie:mac image

HTH

TSx · Jun 20, 2004, 04:33 PM

My partner did most of the JS code, but I know for example a lot of it had to be done using JS due to the load times being too great in sql. The fact that a lot of people are hitting the site at once showed that doing it in JS might be better off.

I'll check with him to get a more detailed reason, but as far as I know we switched from php/sql to js on parts due to load times.

Some things were recently re-done (menu system on the 'my images' page for example) using a text based system rather than the 'fancy' js menus we had before due to compatibility. The 'most viewed', 'who's online', and other boxes are all done using JS though.

TSx · Jun 22, 2004, 10:31 AM

I talked with my partner and as I thought, the primary reason for going with so much JS is server load time. The times were too high without it.

We've made a few changes and are continually adding to the site, but I'm glad if that's the only thing people are having problems with on a mac.