Cross-browser testing...

(This list will grow over the next few weeks, so keep an eye out...)

(If you are reading this blog with IE6... PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!! Upgrade it to IE 8. Help save the sanity of web developers!)

=============

The Internet Explorer Collection package contains the following versions of InternetExploder.

• Internet Explorer 1.0 (4.40.308)
• Internet Explorer 1.5 (0.1.0.10)
• Internet Explorer 2.01 (2.01.046)
• Internet Explorer 3.0 (3.0.1152)
• Internet Explorer 3.01 (3.01.2723)
• Internet Explorer 3.03 (3.03.2925)
• Internet Explorer 4.01 (4.72.3110.0)
• Internet Explorer 5.01 (5.00.3314.2100)
• Internet Explorer 5.5 (5.51.4807.2300)
• Internet Explorer 6.0 (6.00.2800.1106)
• Internet Explorer 6.0 (6.00.2900.2180)
• Internet Explorer 7.0 (7.00.5730.13)
• Internet Explorer 8.0 (8.00.6001.18702)

Once you install it, you will find shortcuts on your desktop for each of the versions you chose to install.

I have tested v6.00.2800.1106 and it crashed but v6.00.2900.2180 worked just fine.
 

So, if you are writing apps for people who like punishment or who work for corporates that simply don't want to change, this is one great tool to test your apps with.
=============

In a previous article, I had listed a number of ways you can do some cross-browser testing.

Since then, I have come across a few more that I thought you may find useful.

• Free- BrowserShots.org still is my favourite, when it comes to the number of browsers covered. You can also selected whether you want javascript on, the colour depth, Flash version etc.
  Note: A $15/month version gives you priority processing.
  

• Free- NetRenderer mostly does IE5.5-8.
  
  
• Free- Spoon (previously Xenocode) offer an interesting twist to cross-browser testing. Instead of screen-shots, they offer a range of browsers that have been, in effect, virtualised and wrapped up in a single EXE.
  As a matter of fact, for a little while at at the start, they did offer those EXEs for download. Alas, they have now made it so you download a plugin instead which takes care of the 'EXE' you run.
  Nonetheless, the whole thing is done quite nicely. They offer the following browsers: Internet Exploder 6-8, Firefox 2-3.5, Safari 3-4, Chrome, Opera 9-10.
  Note: Just to make sure this detail is not missed:
  You can run IE6 and IE7 and IE8 at the same time on the one PC.
  

• NOT free- crossbrowsertesting.com covers the following browsers.
  This is a paid service, starting from $19.95 for 150 minutes per month.

	Operating System	Browsers	Other Software
	Mac OSX 10.5.7	Camino 1.6.6 Firefox 2.0.0.20 Firefox 3.0.5 Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 Netscape 9.0.0.6 Opera 9.2.7 Opera 9.5 Opera 9.6 Safari 3.2.1 Shiira 2.2	Acrobat Reader 8 Flash 10 Quicktime 7.6
	Mac OSX 10.5.8	Camino 1.6.6 Firefox 2.0.0.20 Firefox 3.0.5 Firefox 3.5 Netscape 9.0.0.6 Opera 9.2.7 Opera 9.5 Opera 9.6 Safari 4 Shiira 2.2	Acrobat Reader 8 Flash 10 Quicktime 7.6
	Ubuntu 8.10	Dillo 0.8.6-i18n Firefox 2.0.0.20 Firefox 3.0.6 Konqueror 4.1.4 Lynx 2.24.1.1 Opera 9.6 Seamonkey 1.1.12	Base install - no additional software added
	Windows 7	Firefox 3.5 Google Chrome Internet Explorer 8 Opera 10.10 Safari 4	Flash 10
	Windows 98 SE	Internet Explorer 5.0	Base install - no additional software added
	Windows 98 SE	Firefox 1.0 Internet Explorer 5.0 Mozilla 1.7 Netscape 4 Opera 6	Acrobat Reader 5 Flash 9 MS JVM 1.1.4
	Windows 98 SE	Firefox 1.5 Firefox 2.0 Internet Explorer 6.0 Mozilla 1.7 Netscape 7 Netscape 9 Opera 9.25	Acrobat Reader 5 Flash 9 Sun JRE 1.5
	Windows XP SP2	Internet Explorer 6.0	Base install - no additional software added
	Windows XP SP2	AOL Explorer 1.5 Firefox 1.0 Firefox 1.5 Firefox 2.0 Firefox 3.0.11 Internet Explorer 6.0 Mozilla 1.7 Netscape 7 Netscape 8 Netscape 9 Opera 8 Safari 3.1.2	Acrobat Reader 7 Flash 9 Quicktime 7 Sun JRE 1.5
	Windows XP SP2	AOL Explorer 1.5 Firefox 1.0 Firefox 1.5 Firefox 2.0 Firefox 3.0.11 Firefox 3.5 Internet Explorer 7.0 Mozilla 1.7 Netscape 7 Netscape 8 Netscape 9 Opera 9.25 Opera 9.5 Opera 9.6 Safari 3.1.2	Acrobat Reader 9 Flash 10 Quicktime 7 Silverlight 2 Sun JRE 1.5
	Windows XP SP2	Firefox 3.6 Beta Google Chrome Internet Explorer 8 Opera 10 Beta Safari 4	Silverlight 2
	Windows Vista	Internet Explorer 7.0	Base install - no additional software added
	Windows Vista	Firefox 2.0 Firefox 3.0.11 Internet Explorer 7.0 Netscape 9 Opera 9.25 Safari 3.1.2	Acrobat Reader 8 Flash 9 Quicktime 7 Sun JRE 1.5
	Windows Vista	Firefox 2.0 Firefox 3.0.11 Firefox 3.5 Internet Explorer 7.0 Netscape 9 Opera 9.25 Opera 9.5 Opera 9.6 Safari 3.1.2	Acrobat Reader 9 Flash 10 Quicktime 7 Silverlight 2 Sun JRE 1.6
	Windows Vista	Firefox 3.6 Beta Google Chrome Internet Explorer 8 Opera 10 Beta Safari 4	Silverlight 2

• NOT free- BrowserCam is another screenshot service that covers quite a number of browsers, as shown below. While I am only concentrating on the PC browser aspect of this service, they do offer captures for iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windozzzze mobile. They also do email capture.
  

	Internet Explorer		Mozilla		Firefox		Safari		Konqueror		Opera		Netscape		AOL		Camino		Chrome
Linux Fedora Core 6					1.5.0.12 2.0.0.20 3.5.5	1.5.0.12 2.0.0.20 3.5.5			3.5.4.12	3.5.4.12	10.00 9.62	10.00 9.62	9.0.0.3	9.0.0.3
Macintosh OSX 10.3	5.2		1.6 1.7.12		2.0.0.20		1.2 1.3				9.62		7.2 9.0.0.3				1.5.5
Macintosh OSX 10.4	5.2		1.6 1.7.12		2.0.0.20 3.5.5		2.0.2 3.2.3				10.00 9.62		7.2 9.0.0.3				2.0
Macintosh OSX 10.5			1.7.12		2.0.0.20 3.5.5		3.2.3 4.0.4				10.00 9.62		9.0.0.3				2.0
Macintosh OSX 10.6					3.5.5		4.0.4				10.00
Windows 98	4.0	4.0
Windows 2000 Professional	5.0 5.5 6.02	5.0 5.5 6.02	1.6 1.7.12	1.6 1.7.12	1.5.0 2.0.0.20 3.5.5	1.5.0 2.0.0.20 3.5.5					10.00 9.62	10.00 9.62	4.78 6.2 7.2 9.0.0.3	4.78 6.2 7.2 9.0.0.3	9.1
Windows XP	6.0 7.0 8.0	6.0 7.0 8.0	1.6 1.7.12	1.6 1.7.12	1.5.0 2.0.0.20 3.5.5	1.5.0 2.0.0.20 3.5.5	3.2.3 4.0.4	3.2.3 4.0.4			10.00 9.62	10.00 9.62	6.23 7.2 9.0.0.3	6.23 7.2 9.0.0.3					3.0.195.25	3.0.195.25
Windows Vista	7.0 8.0	7.0 8.0			2.0.0.20 3.5.5	2.0.0.20 3.5.5	3.2.3 4.0.4	3.2.3 4.0.4			10.00 9.62	10.00 9.62	9.0.0.3	9.0.0.3					3.0.195.25	3.0.195.25
Windows 7	8.0	8.0			3.5.5	3.5.5	4.0.4	4.0.4			10.00	10.00							3.0.195.21	3.0.195.21

• NOT free- BrowserCamp allows you to check how your pages will appear on Mac browsers.

ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome!

CSS3 Solutions for Internet Explorer

Louis Lazaris at Smashing Magazine has great article on how to use CSS3 with InternetEmbarassment (IE).

It covers areas such as opacity, rounded corners, box and text shadows, gradients, transparent backgrounds, multiple backgrounds and element rotations.

A great article all round.
Well done Louis!

ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome!

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5 cool .htaccess tips for beginners

Andrzej has some great tips on how to use the .htaccess file (for Apache)

The tips listed are:
- how to disable directory listing
- custom error pages
- managing redirects
- access management
- redirect everyone except a specific IP (or group of) to a specific domain

ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome!

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New version of Subversion binaries

WANDisco, one of the Subversion project's earliest contributors, hosts the latest client and server binaries.

For a great Subversion client, visit the TortoiseSVN site

ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome!

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javascript dates, table sorting and jQuery

If you need to display date data in an HTML table and you want to use a nice display format yet still be able to sort correctly (i.e. as a date and not as text), here is how to do it.

Firstly, you need jQuery.
Then, one of the nicer jQuery table plugins, tableSorter.
And, finally, one of the coolest js date handlers, dateJS.

HTML:

<script src="jquery-1.3.2.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

<script src="date.js.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

<script src="tableSorter/jquery.tablesorter.min.js" 

type="text/javascript"></script>

...

...

...

             <table id="dataTable" class="tablesorter">
                <thead>
                    <tr>
                        <th>ID</th>
                        <th>Login name</th>
                        <th>Active till</th>
                        <th>Last logged in</th>
                    </tr>
                </thead>
                <tbody>
                    <tr>
                        <td></td>
                        <td></td>
                        <td></td>
                        <td></td>
                    </tr>
                </tbody>
            </table>

Javascript:

// at start of js file

// -----------------------------------------------

// add a custom column sorter

  $.tablesorter.addParser(
  {
    // set a unique id
    id: 'nixDates',
    is: function(s)
    {
      // return false so this parser is not auto detected 

      return false;
    },
    format: function(s)
    {
      var dat = Date.parse(s);

      // format data for sorting. The following date format provides for meaningful sorting.
      var s = dat == null ? '' : dat.toString('yyyy-MM-dd');
      return s;
    },
    // set type, either numeric or text
    type: 'text'
  });
         
// now init the table-handler
  $('table#dataTable').tablesorter(
  {
    headers:
    { 

     // 3rd and 4th columns need special sorting
     2:    {sorter:'nixDates'}
     ,3:   {sorter:'nixDates'}
    }
  });

// -----------------------------------------------

// and later on, at the point where you want to populate the grid

// -----------------------------------------------

  var newRow;
  var fmtDat;

  var idx;

  var numberOfRows;  // this is set by earlier code not shown here
           
  for (idx = 0; idx < numberOfRows; idx++)
  {

     //gDataTable contains a jQuery object pointing to our 'table tbody'
     newRow = $('<tr></tr>').appendTo(gDataTable);
     $(newRow)
       .append('<td class="rowKey">' + data[idx].id + '</td>'
       +    '<td>' + data[idx].loginName + '</td>'
       );
               
       // Any fancy date format can be used here (thanks to dateJS).
       // Also, the sorting issue is taken care of by a custom sort handler on tablesorter. See top of this file.
       fmtDat = data[idx].activeTill == null ? '' : Date.parse(data[idx].activeTill).toString('ddd, dd MMM yyyy');
       $(newRow).append('<td fieldname="activeTill">' + fmtDat + '</td>');
               
       fmtDat = data[idx].lastLoggedIn == null ? '' : Date.parse(data[idx].lastLoggedIn).toString('ddd, dd MMM yyyy');
       $(newRow).append('<td fieldname="lastLoggedIn">' + fmtDat + '</td>');
       }
  }

// -----------------------------------------------

Note that a lot of code has been left out; the above is simply there to demonstrate the code specific to formatting the dates, as well as setting up and loading the grid.


ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome!



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Bulletproof HTML5 fallback using jQuery

HTML5 will be with us very soon, so long as Microstuff doesn't mess anything up.

But just in case you wanted to start now, here is an article that shows you how you can do just that, even on that thing called Internet Exploder 6!

The article explains how you can use CSS, jQuery and HTML5 and have it behave correctly in all browsers.

ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome!

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Blistering fast filename search

Have a look at this web site. It contains a search utility that is the fastest I have ever seen.
It will scan all NTFS filesystems and return a list of all the matching files... very quickly!

Here is how the author describes it

"Everything" is an administrative tool that locates files and folders by filename instantly for Windows.

Unlike Windows search, "Everything" initially displays every file and folder on your computer (hence the name "Everything").

You type in a search filter to limit what files and folders are displayed.

ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome!