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DavideMac · Nov 26, 2003, 09:04 PM

Just a quick question, with IE in Windows being version 6 an version 5.2 in OS X, does that mean that they are slightly different? I mean should I be testing in both versions to check for compatibility or is testing in 5.2 good enough.

dillerX · Nov 26, 2003, 11:07 PM

Yes. Last site I reworked needed a fix in both. And both mistakes were different.

Test in as many browsers, versions, etc as you possibly can. Always nice to have friends test for you too on their machines.

redJag · Nov 26, 2003, 11:53 PM

Yes, even IE5 for windows was vastly different than IE5 for mac when it came to rendering. Usually you want to test in IE for windows (5 and 6 are fairly similar), IE5 for mac, mozilla, safari, and any special interest browsers you'd like to support.

James L · Nov 27, 2003, 02:49 PM

Version numbers aside... IE Win and IE Mac might as well be completely different browsers.

Their CSS support differs, their Javascript support is slightly different, IE Mac supports the Navigator.plugins object, whereas IE Win does not... the list goes on and on.

They are basically the same in name alone, so always test in both

I test it IE6 Win, NN7 Win, NN4 Win, IE5 Mac, NN7 Mac, NN4 Mac, Safari, and hopefully Opera in both platforms.

Cheers!

thePurpleGiant · Nov 27, 2003, 07:18 PM

I have finally made the jump to testing only in:

Mac IE 5.2
Windows IE 5, 5.5 and 6
Safari
Mozilla

Netscape 4 and IE 4 no longer make up more than .02% of hits on clients server logs. I am not going to support 7 year old browsers any more.

Mozilla renders the same cross platform, so no need to test on Windows also. Netscape uses the same engine, no need to test there.

NYCFarmboy · Nov 28, 2003, 01:57 PM

Yes....as stated above Windows IE is very different from Mac IE.

You always have to look on a PC running windows to double check your webpages..as thats how 90% of your viewers will see them..whether we like it or not.

Towards that end I have friends doublecheck webpages, or pay them a visit and look myself.

I've not yet purchased, but am looking for a old Windows laptop just for this purpose as I only need to check on occasion. But if I were having to check weekly or even daily I'd get a el-cheapo PC running Windows XP home and use that to double check. (and a laptop just so you can put the hideous thing away when you dont' need it).

James L · Nov 28, 2003, 03:11 PM

hey PurpleGiant,

I don't code for the version 4 browsers, but I always get a kick out of knowing what good CSS looks like in crappy browsers!

NYC,

I did exactly that. I went out and purchased an el cheapo Dell PIII 650 Mhz machine with 256MB ram and a 12 Gig HD. I installed XP on it and the only time I turn it on is when I am testing pages. It was a remarkably cheap laptop purchase, and saves me trips to my friends house for testing.

DavideMac · Dec 14, 2003, 03:09 PM

Sorry to bring this up again but I too will be looking into a cheap PC for testing my websites but I do have one more question: Is it possible to run IE 5, 5.5 and 6 on say, windows 98SE or windows XP? I seem to recall in my PC days that I could not have different versions on the same operating system and that all I could do was upgrade. What's the best solution for this problem considering I'm not going to run to a friends house everytime I want to test a page.

Thanks

mzllr · Dec 14, 2003, 04:16 PM

normally, i don't believe that you are supposed to be able to run multiple versions of ie on a windows box.... but i did find this article that shows you how to do it, if you feel up to some tinkering. i did a google about it and it seems like others have had success with this method.

for myself, i just use vpc and run separate virtual machines for ie5 and ie6...

DavideMac · Dec 14, 2003, 05:59 PM

Sounds interesting....I don't have vpc but what your saying is, if I did buy vpc I could run both IE 5.5 and IE 6 in separate virtual machines. How is this accomplished and which vpc should I buy? I see a few operating system versions on the web site.

mzllr · Dec 14, 2003, 07:30 PM

i have an old version of vpc, so i'm still running win98 and have not had any problems... so i don't think the os really matters (i would go with whatever is cheapest, but that's just my cheapskate-ass).

the way i got two virtual machines running was to just make a duplicate of the existing hard drive file and then add it to the vpc list...

and this is what you end up with...

it's not the fastest, but it works well enough. and for my situation where i have my development web and database servers all running locally, i really don't like having to upload to my main server just to test a page in windows. so in the long run, it saves me some development time being able to develop and test both mac and win browsers all on one box.

DavideMac · Dec 14, 2003, 09:45 PM

Thanks for the tip, but if I understand this right, you have 2 vpc's running and because it's win98 you left IE 5.5 the way it is (being that win98 came with 5.5 I presume) and on the second vpc you upgraded to IE6. Now you can launch both vpc's and have different version browsers. And the way you accomplished this was to duplicate the vpc program in the apps folder as to have have 2 programs that are really the same. Correct me if I'm wrong because I've never used this program before but you have me close to making an investment.

Also, this would mean that I would have to buy vpc win98 and should not buy vpc XP because XP would automatically come with IE6 and then I would be screwed. Or at least half screwed.

I'm going to look into what software comes with the packages.

mzllr · Dec 15, 2003, 01:43 AM

you don't have to duplicate the program itself... with vpc, you can have numerous different os's running - win xp, win 2000, red hat, and whatever else they sell. each os is it's own file, separate from the program. from within vpc you can launch each one. that os file is what you end up duplicating.

you end up with a list of os's like this:

and you can get win xp if you want, just download ie5 from evolt's browser archive.

DavideMac · Dec 15, 2003, 08:02 AM

I see .........looks like it might be the way to go. Thanks for all the info and thanks for that browser archive link.

york28 · Dec 18, 2003, 03:13 AM

I also use Virtual PC on my iBook 500. It's super slow, but works well enough.

I test in:
Windows IE 5, 5.5, 6 (5.5 is a lot different from 5, its much more like 6 in many ways). These are each on a separate virtual windows box. I suggest using Windows 98, which is what I do. It runs faster in emulation, and supports all of these versions of IE.

Safari
Firebird/Mozilla
Netscape 7
Opera 6 for Mac (sometimes)

thePurpleGiant · Dec 18, 2003, 08:35 AM

Originally posted by york28:
I test in:
<snip>
Opera 6 for Mac (sometimes)

Heh. Opera for Mac. Hehehe.

Sorry - just the mention of that program makes me laugh.

By the way, york, you'd probably want to test in Internet Explorer 5 for Mac. Remember not too long ago this was the default browser for Mac users. And most people using Mac OS 9 use IE.

Perhaps you could test in IE, not Netscape 7 (since Netscape 7 essentially renders things the same as Mozilla)

york28 · Dec 18, 2003, 02:09 PM

Whoops. I actually do test in IE for Mac, I just forgot to put it in that list. Probably because I wish it would go away sometime real soon.

I know that it does support some CSS better than IE Win, but its bugs drive me nuts. (Float: left anyone?) It's just another different set of bugs to get around. I can't remember how many time I have something looking perfect in IE Win, Safari, and Moz, and then I check it it IE Mac, which has decided to crap all over my layout.

I only test in Netscape and Firebird/Mozilla because occasionally, there will be a CSS bug in Netscape that has been fixed in Firebird/Mozilla. This used to be a bigger problem in the past when codebase-wise Firebird/Mozilla was way ahead, but now it is not such a big deal.