Using Mozilla in Testing and Debugging

Henrik Gemal writes "In this article I will describe some very cool features in Mozilla which will enable you to quickly find and debug errors in your web site and web applications."

Comments

paradime change

[Anonymous Coward]

websites & webpages have reached a complexity whereby mistakes are refered to as 'bugs' like as if it were software. It seems the slow drift towards the internet being the computer is slowly happening. Nowonder Microsoft was so afraid of Netscape, though they thought it'd happen much quicker, though it probably would've with the speed Netscape came up with new things (where as MS not having done any real improvements to their browser for a long time).

Re:paradime change

[Angry White Guy]

The big problem with web-based tools is that there is greater incentive for the software to become a subscription service, rather than a product. The upside to this is for every web service out there, there is an open source version trying to do the same thing, or a compiled shareware version because somebody is too cheap to sign up for the subscription.

Re:paradime change

[bheerssen]

Complex websites are as legitimate pieces of software as your word processor. They have routines and they maintain state (albeit painfully). They also have bugs. They can have development cycles and release schedules. Just like software. You have to pay attention to threading and memory usage just like real software.

In short, websites are often not collections of html documents comparable to a PDF file, but true pieces of software that require thought and analysis throughout the development cycle. To get an idea of this, download a copy of phpMyAdmin or webmin and have a look at the source. Slashcode is also a good example.

Testing with mozilla

[mwhahaha]

I normally use mozilla when I'm doing web development, however I still have to run throught he site in IE. Mozilla has great development features, but I have found that IE has bastardized HTML. Mozilla also has it's issues with tables (I'm currently having issues with non wraping text rows) and Horizontal rules (for some reason it just won't display on certain pages). You should see the code to get around the nonwraping text, my god it's horrid. Another thing is that Mozilla's javascript is slightly different than Microsoft's. I have found that IE 5.0's implementation is different than 5.5 and 6.0. Mozilla will also let you get away with certain variable addressings that IE will choke on. Mozilla is great, but you still have to use IE at some point. IE still forces us to do stupid things :[

Re:Testing with mozilla

[FuzzzyLogik]

I just have on my front page, best viewed with Mozilla/Netscape 7 ... with a nice big link to both. Seriously, IE might load faster, but everyone i've converted over from IE, they don't ever close it once it's open... even my parents, but they use Phoenix now not mozilla (though both are installed)... so, really, for me.. i limit who views my site correctly, but seriously, once aol flips over to use the gecko rendering engine in their client... IE might as well go on to the little browser heaven... or hell.. ;)

Re:Testing with mozilla

[Christianfreak]

That's the problem right there: Javascript. The company I work for (small business so this is easier) before I came Javascript was "IT" and slowly I've shown how you can do cool stuff with stylesheets, and how clean pages without alot of stupid javascript effects go a long way to creating happy customers.

Convince them they don't need the JS, much less rely on it for pages to display or navigate properly and life will be much better.

Re:Testing with mozilla

[the-matt-mobile]

I would love to have something like a "stringent" mode while developing web pages (ala browser producer error instead of trying to render the html)

You can use XHTML and then use any XML parser to check your page. If it doesn't parse, it isn't valid.

If you're used to writing nasty HTML like <b><i>example</b></i> then you'll probably complain the XHTML feels a little too stringent, but once you get used to it, designing your page just feels so much nicer.

standards compliant so far

[trmj]

I have really been impressed with mozilla since they went fully standards compliant (back in '96 I remember it being all the rage to complain about netscape and how their "netscape-isms" like the , etc tags were ruining HTML).

Let's hope that with these new developer features they continue with this compliancy, and don't go and do what MS did to scripting/programming languages when they released .NET

Validity checker and indicator

[Alderete]

I'd really like to see a simple plug-in that adds only one visible element to the standard interface, a smiley/frownie face, ala iCab, that indicates whether the HTML of the page actually validates to the DTD declared in the document itself. Clicking on a frownie face would bring up a list of validation errors. This would be a great tool for site developers, making mistakes quickly visible.

It would be an even better tool for standards evangelism if it was included in the default installation of Mozilla/Phoenix. Then you'd turn the entire population of Mozilla users into nitpickers, who would hound site developers about lack of standards compliance.

From personal experience, nothing makes you fix problems faster than users regularly sending you e-mail about things that are broken. So making it obvious when things are broken would lead to more feedback, and more feedback would lead to more standards-compliant websites.

Which would be good for Mozilla, and all other browser developers who work towards standards-compliance.

Re:Validity checker and indicator

[simeonbeta2]

Excellent idea! If i had mod points i'd up you.

This makes complete sense to me based on personal experience. I work for a web shop and some users complain who see javascript errors in the status bar at the bottom of IE. It usually isn't affecting them, but users don't like to see errors!

If the major browser makers would include this feature (even when they still have code to work around non-standard stuff) html compliance would soar.

Even aside from that, having compliance validation right in the browser would be helpful to me as a programmer... I often don't go to the enormous hassle of using the w3c's online validator... a 'right in the browser' check would probably help...

Re:Variable timeout?

[Anonymous Coward]

To make a browser never time out, you'd first have to convince people to stop using TCP/IP for sending data between the server and your machine.

Nothing beats....

[Richard_at_work]

print or echo. or print_r, or vardump. or...

I for one, have never found myself doing any debugging in the browser past printing to it from php. Thats how i debug, simple. My html is rarely at fault, and if it looks good in IE or Phoenix, then it rocks. I dont do javascript. I dont do stuff client side. Theres nothing for the client to debug, job done.

As an aside, this article struck me as less of a "handy things in mozilla" and more of a "oooh look at what mozilla does over IE". It really struck me as that, another flag waving rather than truely informative.

Re:One more feature request: IE emulation

[duffbeer703]

If you just clone IE, what's the point of having Mozilla?

The whole point to mozilla is to compete with IE. They are producing a superior, standards complaint browser that will eventually force microsoft to clean up their act.

Mozilla's gratuitous changes drive me nuts

[OYAHHH]

I'm,

A big fan of Mozilla, but I do have to admit that I would prefer it if things remained a tad bit more stable.

For example, from the 1.2 to 1.3 release of Mozilla the "New Tab" popup menu item moved from the 0 (zero) position in the popup menu to the 2 position.

From a day to day useability standpoint it's annoying for the menu's and the like to change around but just try to write certain automated test programs with that sort of thing going on.

I know that Mozilla is usually advertised as "test platform" but that doesn't mean that it also should serve as a point of frustration for those who would like to be able to count on a feature existing from one dot release to another.

Other than those sorts of things I love the darn thing.

Over...

Re:No wonder mozilla is so bloated.

[Christianfreak]

Interesting? Everytime a Mozilla article pops up so does this comment. Redundant is more like it.

But I guess however I'm in a troll feeding mood. So lets examine a few facts:

A) Mozilla is 4 apps in one. Some people like this, some people don't. If you don't like it then use Phoenix or one of the other stand-alone browsers

B) For an app that is four apps in one, Mozilla has a relatively small foot-print. I've got several tabs open and the mail client right now and its only using 48 megs (mostly just idle in swap) that's on Linux.

C) IE (which I'm assuming you run) starts up faster than Moz, why? because IE starts up with windows so you actually run it all the time. Besides in Windows you can run mozilla in your sys-tray so that you get a fast start up just like IE.

D) I don't have turbo mode on (I don't even think its availiable in Linux) and still Moz starts up very fast on my 1 Ghz Athlon

And E) a little extra code to tell you where Javascript errors wouldn't really be creating much bloat even if there was bloat in the first place.

Mozilla does have a way to edit source, its call 'Composer' which is an HTML editor. View Source isn't for editing files, and the fact that MS decided to use the wonderful invention of Notepad for their view source has always annoyed me.

And on a side note as a web developer, Mozilla with its web development tools plus Vim is far easier to use and more powerful that DreamWeaver or anything else out there IMHO.