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

[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

[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.

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...