Browser testing and development

[ash]

Hi all,

I was wondering if you have some tips for me. My team and I are working on a range of websites, apps, plugins, etc. The thing we struggle the most with is browser testing. (We use programs such as Visual Studio, Eclipse, etc.)

I am now wondering if there is anything out there which can test several operating systems, screen-sizes and browsers, plus give me a development panel or some sort of control in which I could fix the issues? Most simulators are flaky and/or inconsistent.

What are you using and what challenges are you facing?

 

[ash]

For example:

Ghost Lab (7 day trial)
https://www.vanamco.com/ghostlab/
testing for operating system, browser or smart phone – Some issues are known with complex sites or subdomains


BrowserStack (Free trial, HIGHLY limited)
https://www.browserstack.com/
testing for operating system, browser or smart phone – VMs can be slow and sometimes buggy


Sauce Labs (14 day trial)
https://saucelabs.com/
testing for operating system, browser or smart phone – Small device list, stability issue


Microsoft virtual machines (IE only)
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/#downloads
Test Microsoft Edge and versions of IE8 through IE11 using free virtual machines you download and manage locally.



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[Paul Murray]

Litmus has a panel where you add your code and can edit it in there, but it's only really for mobile marketing.

I'm not sure if what you want (being able to fix issues in the browser) exists. Best thing you can do is minimise the chances of things not working correctly on older devices by avoiding using none-universal conventions such as flex-box layout, using fallbacks, and prefixing CSS (using autoprefixer for Gulp or NPM, or a package for an IDE such as Atom for example) to try and prevent browser issues. Then cross-check on as many devices and OSs as you can. It's not really possible to get something that's consistent unless you develop in a really old-fashioned way, which means you sacrifice some creativity in design and functionality.

I normally agree with a client or developer on a rock-bottom specification, so basically which phone model, browser and OS we will go down to. Some agencies have stopped supporting older IE browsers outright or charge an additional fee. Some don't even support transparent PNGs, so the chances of getting something that looks 'ok' working in them is more hassle than it's worth. Technology moves so fast, and whilst we should really be trying to make everything accessible to everyone, A) it's not always possible, and B) part of me feels that we should be pushing web boundaries to force tech and consumers to keep up.

 

[ash]

Hi Paul, thank you for getting back to me
with being able to fix the issue in the browser I mean , being able to access the browsers development tools/inspector. Some browser tests only provide snapshots. We will have to test the whole user experience in each browser on several OS and devices.

Sadly we have to support very old browsers and Operating systems, since some of our clients still use IE7 /8 their machines are completely locked down and I cannot see any change in the next couple of years. So yes, it is very restrictive and discouraging . Luckily that is the only client which such restrictions.