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Opera 9.0 Fully Passes ACID2 Test

Rytis writes "Opera has just become the second browser after Safari to be able to pass completely the famous ACID2 test. Mark Wilton-Jones is running a little article on the history of the Opera and ACID tests. Of course, it includes a screenshot of Opera 9 showing the nice happy face saying "Hello world!"."

22 of 418 comments (clear)

  1. Konqueror passed 2nd by GraZZ · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, Konqueror passed second. Some might say this is less of an achievment since the fixes that allowed Safari to pass could be more easily ported into the Konqueror codebase, but I still think the OSS project that passed Acid2 first should probably get more respect on /. ;)

    Info here.

    1. Re:Konqueror passed 2nd by Derek+Pomery · · Score: 5, Informative

      RTFA and you'll see this.
      "Opera 9 (get the weekly build) now passes the Acid 2 test, making it the second browser to do so. And yes, I can count. Safari passed first, and Opera is second. Konqueror and iCab almost pass (and claim to pass), but they both fail to apply one of the styles required by the test..."

      --
      -- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"' /. ate my old sig. Bastards.
    2. Re:Konqueror passed 2nd by Derek+Pomery · · Score: 5, Informative

      I was merely pointing out what the article said. And since the Opera guy points out the page *isn't* supposed to scroll, I imagine a scrolling bug would indeed qualify as incorrect rendering, so the artifacts in your screenshot would merely support Opera's point.

      --
      -- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"' /. ate my old sig. Bastards.
    3. Re:Konqueror passed 2nd by onedotzero · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's not supposed to have a scrollbar at all. The parent div (or html or body - I haven't checked the source for a while) is given a property of overflow: hidden.

      --
      onedotzero
      thedigitalfeed.co.uk

    4. Re:Konqueror passed 2nd by Derek+Pomery · · Score: 4, Informative

      https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=acid2
      Track Gecko progress here.  Including screenshots.
      Link as plain text due to /. referers being blocked.

      --
      -- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"' /. ate my old sig. Bastards.
    5. Re:Konqueror passed 2nd by Phil+John · · Score: 4, Informative

      Safari is an OSS project too.

      No it isn't, WebKit, the rendering engine Safari uses, is an open source project. Safari itself is very much closed source.

      --
      I am NaN
    6. Re:Konqueror passed 2nd by Bogtha · · Score: 5, Informative

      That's not a bug, that's exactly what is supposed to happen when you scroll the page. From the technical guide:

      In the markup, the row is represented by a p element which is fixed to the window rather than the scrollable canvas. If the Acid2 page is scrolled, the scalp will stay fixed in place, becoming unstuck from the rest of the face, which will scroll.

      --
      Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
    7. Re:Konqueror passed 2nd by Krach42 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Safari hides the scrollbar, so I don't know what you're talking about.

      From what I've read here, Konquerer still shows the scroll bar, and Opera doesn't have the scalp come off when you scroll.

      So, Safari passes, everything else still got some work?

      At least they all pass a hundred times better than IE...

      --

      I am unamerican, and proud of it!
  2. It claims to but fails by Momomoto · · Score: 5, Informative

    FTA:

    "Konqueror and iCab almost pass (and claim to pass), but they both fail to apply one of the styles required by the test, and as a result they display a scrollbar even though they shouldn't (the Acid 2 guide neglects to mention this style, but see the source code for the test itself):

    html { ... overflow: hidden; /* hides scrollbars on viewport, see 11.1.1:3 */ ... }"

    --
    "Max, come over here. French-Canadian bean soup. I want to pay. Let them leave me alone." - Dutch Schultz
  3. Re:ACID passed, real world? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Could you be a little more vague? It's not unexpected for browsers with different rendering engines to render things differently, especially for web interfaces, very especially if it comes from Microsoft.

    Moreover, it's a fallacy to expect a browser to "work in all situations". I'm sure there are plenty of real-world situations where Firefox fails as well, and where Safari were to succeed in it's place. It's tests like ACID2 that determine a browsers capability to handle all situations.

    The problem Safari is having with Exchange is very likely due to poor coding. Considering it's from Microsoft (you said Exchange web interface, right?), I'm sure Microsoft implemented a slew of hacks to have Firefox compliance (Microsoft is well known for improper web developing practices, to put it lightly).

  4. Re:ACID passed, real world? by Kjella · · Score: 4, Informative

    ACID test or no, I like the one that works in all situations.

    First off that one hasn't been built, as I've seen IE manage to screw up royally too on sites claiming to work with IE, sometimes only with IE. The trouble with trying to match IE bug for bug is that you can't succeed as you can never duplicate the implementation exactly, you need to render pages wrong according to the standard, and worst of all it is never predictable. I really hate "trial-and-error" programming, and IE is the worst of the bunch.

    In your case, you're trying to use MS generated HTML. I'm sure the fact that Firefox can render it is completely accidental and will be fixed in the next Exchange service pack. You can't expect a company that has a vested business interest in not playing nice, to play nice. The ACID2 test is an assurance that if I code to the standard, I will see none (or at least very few) rendering issues on any browser (except IE). That is very reassuring to people who think "OMG supporting five browsers, do I have to make 5x the number of hacks?" No, you don't. In fact, you'll code to one standard and fix hacks for one browser. Which is actually better than to code to zero standards and fix hacks for one browser...

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  5. Re:Internet Explorer getting better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Provide a link to the image, or people here won't understand your subtle sarcasm. :)

  6. See how your browser fares... by fugas · · Score: 5, Informative

    Take the ACID2 test...

  7. Re:ACID passed, real world? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    I agree with you on that. It can pass all the certifications it wants, but until Opera supports some of the more basic javscript methods IE and FF have no problem with, it will never be my browser of choice.

    The problems with Opera's JS arise in three situations:

    1) The site specifically blocks out Opera due to scripts 5-6 years old, but happily copypasted throughout the web project by brainless "web designers". Or server-side sniffing, like Yahoo did and still does, AFAIK.

    See here for example, one that I found just a few minutes ago when informing myself of the latest and greatest Bollywood hit: http://www.rangdebasanti.net/

    Their JS code contains this:
    var dom=document.getElementById&&navigator.userAgent.i ndexOf("Opera")==-1 ...
    if (ie||dom) ...
    Use Proxomitron or Opera's cloaking techniques to get rid of the "Opera" part in UA string, and what do you know, the site works perfectly!

    2) The site doesn't block Opera per se, but exhibits "if IE or Netscape" behaviour. Of course Firefox deals with those, as it descends from Netscape. Opera doesn't, and Opera is not IE, either, so it end up in no man's land...

    3) The site has JS errors, and Opera is pretty strict when parsing JS, more so than Firefox or IE.

    Honestly, Opera does not have any JS issues. None whatsoever. It's brainless webmonkeys who have issues with their JavaScript.
  8. Re:ACID passed, real world? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative
  9. More elaborate history by Jugalator · · Score: 4, Informative

    Mark Wilton-Jones is running a little article on the history of the Opera and ACID test

    There's a more useful history about it here (in reverse chronological order), describing what exactly the standard compliance problems were, and how they fixed them, starting with Opera 8.00.

    And go to the Opera Desktop Team blog to download the actual build that works with this. However, note that this build should be treated like a Firefox nightly, and there may be some pretty serious rendering regressions, doing currently more damage to the layout engine than good from following the Acid2 test. ;-)

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  10. Re:For the curious - by Bloater · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's supposed to be blue when the mouse pointer is hovered over it. We don't know the location of the mouse pointer in the Opera screenshot.

  11. No it hasn't... by raz0 · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's the :hover event. If you hover the nose with the mouse, the nose turns blue.

  12. Re:ACID passed, real world? by Bogtha · · Score: 5, Informative

    IE does support event handling, it just doesn't work the official way.

    It doesn't support event handling as defined by the DOM specifications. My comment is perfectly clear when you don't cut the quote off prematurely.

    Referring to Internet Explorer's proprietary DHTML interface as a "DOM", while technically accurate, is misleading as in common use, the term "DOM" refers to the W3C specifications.

    boohoo.

    How about a little maturity?

    As for memory leaks, FF DOM has the same kinds of issues.

    a) No it doesn't, many Internet Explorer memory leaks are an artifact of the JScript engine being unable to refcount properly.

    b) You implied that Internet Explorer had a "solid" DOM. That is not true regardless of the quality of Firefox's DOM. Internet Explorer's DOM doesn't get more "solid" if you distract people by talking about other browsers.

    --
    Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
  13. Re:This does NOT pass Acid 2 by Dubpal · · Score: 4, Informative
    I can clearly see the blue nose in the opera screen shot, and it's meant to be black in the reference diagram.

    The nose changes color when you mouseover it. Even in the mess that is Firefox's rendering of the page hovering your mouse over the face causes the nose to change colour from black to blue.
    I guess that's something they really should specify in the reference diagram, but it's still a pass for Opera 9.

  14. Re:Ah opera... by TrekkieGod · · Score: 4, Informative
    I really d I really don't see how I can be considered part of the problem.

    Well, it's great that you do all that work to consider your visitors. What I was referring to was your comment that following standards isn't really that important, it's just a guideline. That train of thought is part of the problem.

    Think of a world where every browser renders everything in the standard correctly. Suddenly, your job is easier. In order to make sure that your web page renders correctly for the visitors using IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Konqueror, whatever, you don't need to actually test it with each one of those browsers. You just need to make sure your site follows the standards, and the rest "just works". If you skip out on things because "they're dumb," well, you may think you're right, but why do you expect browser developers to share your opinion?

    You'll see 12 ridiculous errors

    Depends on your definition of ridiculous. You wouldn't expect c code that doesn't have syntax exactly right to compile, so why do you expect html syntax that isn't exactly right to render correctly?

    from things like > characters whose position it disagrees with

    I didn't find that. I found error #3. It's not complaining about the position of the character, it's complaining that you placed that tag inside your unordered list, but not within a list item tag. I checked the source code and you have:

    <ul id="utabs">
    <a href="?page1"><<</a>

    If it's part of the unordered list, it should be inside a <li> tag. If you don't want for that to appear the same as the other list items, you should give it a class attribute and handle it in your css (there are other correct ways of handling it too, if you don't like that for some reason).

    That and a childish remark about my html tag which was funny for the 1.3 seconds I spent writing the top line...

    It wasn't your remark that it complained about. It complained about your type. That's not how you specify 4.01. From a W3C page, there's this example, using SGML to do what you want (for strict 4.01).:

    <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
    <html>

    Heck...you should be fine just skipping that altogether. Close your html tag, and don't put the type thing.

    errors that don't tell me anything useful or constructive at all

    The validator doesn't tell you how to fix it, just that it found something wrong. However,

    a wikipedia url I pasted, which the validator decided to parse and rate

    For that error, the validator told you exactly what was wrong...in bold. "The most common cause of this error is unencoded ampersands in URLs". I've actually noticed that in other places in your html code for that page, stuff that I expected the validator to complain about, but it didn't.

    In html, if you want to have a "<" or ">" that is not part of a tag, you use a code. you type in "&lt;" for < and "&gt;" for >. If you want to type "&", you type "&amp;" Replace the & in that url, and it'll pass. You should replace the <'s I mentioned in error #3 with the correct codes too, even if the validator doesn't complain about it.

    I'm not trying to be a bastard about it. I hope my comments help you understand the validator better, and see that it's not so useless as you've come to believe. It's great that you've been putting effort to make sure your visitors get the best experience they can on your site, and I hope you'll keep doing so.

    --

    Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.

  15. Actually Firefox do care a lot about Acid2 by horacerumpole · · Score: 5, Informative
    Actually they care a lot about it - see Bug #289480

    It's just such a complex problem to tuckle that it seems to me (as a sideline spectactor) to be stupid to block the entire Firefox train just for it. They are working on it.