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Helping the Apple Web Community w/o an Apple Computer?
ptaff asks: "Web developing can burn some braincells when trying to get a page to render fine in all browsers. Using XHTML/CSS on Win/Linux, thou can get a 'satisfying' result among PC browsers (MSIE, Mozilla-and-derivatives, Konqueror, Opera) - but when it comes to Apple browsers (Mac-MSIE, Safari, Omniweb, iCab, and others), and there's no Mac around to test, how can you tell if things will work out fine? I personally experienced a CSS border directive on an input tag that completely messed up a simple document. There are some CSS compatablity sheets (this
comes to mind), but can you test further than that? is there any way a web developer can check for Apple-browser-compliance without a Mac?" If only HTML validation were as simple as submitting pages to the proper emulator, and viewing the results.
We have language standards to make cross-platforming easier. If you'd like to check to see if your page is w3c complaint, go here.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
If only HTML validation were as simple as submitting pages to the proper emulator, and viewing the results.
<rant>
Should be even simpler than this
-- if you code XHTML, then all XHTML compliant browsers should render the same.
-- if you code CSS, then all CSS compliant browsers should render the same.
-- if you code XYZ, then all XYZ compliant apps should do the same thing.
Isn't this what standards are all about?
Imagine if different electric companies supplied different types of power, while all "be standards compliant"
Image if different car companies produced cars that did not comply to "the standard road" or "the standard gas pump"
Do I have to test my public-access TV show on multiple channels, on multiple different TVs, just to make sure it works on all of them?
It's NUTZ! </rant>
10b||~10b -- aah, what a question!
no offense but if you are doing any kind of web development you better have all the major platforms on your desk:
A Mac with old Mac IE and new Safari (Mozilla/Netscape and Camino optional)
A PC with various flavors of IE and Mozilla/Netscape.
A Linux machine with the current Red Hat, with Mozilla and Konqueror.
Personally I have a Mac and Linux machine with VMWare running multiple OSes.
Sure you can dig into iCab and Opera and fringe browsers but the above list is good enough (I can just hear the Opera user(s) priming their flamethrowers, sorry guys).
Also keep this in Mind: the Mac folks are really trying hard for a standards-compliant browser that ALSO renders all the quirks of IE and other browsers. So if your code doesn't work right on the Mac there's a button right there on Safari that let's you submit the page to Apple as a bug. Maybe it's your bug or misunderstanding but if not you can be sure the Mac folks will fix it.
Check out David Hyatt's blog.
Do the Macs at CompUSA allow people to access the CD drive? If so, just waltz in, pop in the disc, test it, get your disc, and waltz out. Heck, people have copied entire office suites before this way. Or, you could just post it on the web and use a networked Mac to access it. I often go to NewEgg.com to look at reviews while at CompUSA.
The thing I think is pretty great about Mac browsers (at least Safari on OS X) is that they do a pretty darn good job with the kind of crap they are thrown.
I use Safari almost exclusively and I browse all sorts of sites that I know were only previewed in winIE or were designed specifically for it and very very rarely have any sort of major rendering problems.
In fact, most sites look better in Safari because the text anti-aliasing looks so much nicer. Like, even Slashdot looks all right! Who would of thunk?
sig
As I work in webshop (yes, we're still around after the dot bomb), we regularly have clients that don't give a crap about browser compatibility or standards. However, our development team (myself included) do care.
We code and validate our sites to HTML 4.01 or XHTML 1.0. But we still test our sites on IE (for both Mac and Windows), Mozilla-based browsers, and Safari. Why? Because while coding to standards works great for us developers, these browsers still have bugs (especially CSS bugs). We routinely find CSS bugs in IE 5.5 for Windows, a few here and there in Safari, and (ironically enough) the current worst of the lot: IE 5 for Macintosh (ironic because, as some of you know, this browser used to be considered the most CSS-compliant). We don't sniff for browsers - we just try to avoid markup and style definitions that don't consistently work across the board.
Yes, it takes more work than just validating code. However, it still 10x less work than doing hacks and tricks to make stuff work in that piece-of-crap Netscape 4.
When making sites for a line office at NOAA (US gov't office), I always wrote for two browsers. You have to write for Internet Explorer because it'd bring, even in NOAA where NS 4.7 was pretty much forced on you, 90% of your hits, and Mozilla/Netscape 6+ "for everyone else".
The most important thing about Mozilla, and what impressed me most with the excellent browser, is that Mozilla's behavor was the same across platforms when it came to Javascript, CSS, and other rendering. More importantly, rendering errors showed the same behavior in the same version of Mozilla, regardless of platform! That's impressive.
Sure, fonts, icons, etc are *slightly* different, but I made some pretty dhtml intensive stuff (click "Query Storms") that behaved exactly the same on Linux on Windows, Linux, and both Mac OS 8-9 & OS X.
You basically have two choices. Make a Google-like site with such simple html that it'll render correctly everywhere, even in Lynx, or program higher-end, thicker client, dhtml jive for IE and Moz. That covers the vast majority of your hits (IE) and will give the option to most anyone on an alternative OS to, at worst, download a free browser that'll behave exactly as you'd expect (Moz). (Okay, three choices -- make two sites. One's dumbed down for lynx, the other for IE/Moz.) Now you've covered Mac, Linux, and heavens knows what else just by testing, give or take, on Windows. Mozilla's good enough that it is a platform.
Check for DOM (document.all and document.layers), give a warning to anyone who doesn't conform, and feel good that you've give people who *need* to see your pages an option without wasting hours and hours testing and writing for browsers that will make up a very low volume of your visits. Yes, you potentially exclude Granny Smith on dial-up with Mac OS 8.1 or Joe Apple Diehard who only uses Safari and won't even touch Camino, but let's face it, you're better off spending that time writing a new site and reaching 99% of a new audience anyhow.
Good luck!
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
The Apple retail stores would be another option, if there's one close. You could even test on a new G5. They will for sure let you use the CD drives; they'd probably even let you make changes to your code, verify, and then burn it to a CD (but you'd have to bring the blank CD yourself.)
If you get hassled, you might explain what you're doing--and if they're alert enough, they'll do anything they can to encourage you in making sure your pages work with the Mac, and thank you for making the effort. I might suggest going during the weekday though.
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$tar -xvf