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First Look At the ACID3 Browser Test

Posted by kdawson on from the turn-on-tune-in-render dept.

ddanier writes "Now that all major browsers have mastered the ACID2 test (at least in some preview versions), work on ACID3 has begun. The new test will focus on ECMAScript, DOM Level 3, Media Queries, and data: URLs. 100 tests will be put into functions each returning either true or false depending on the result of the test. The current preview of ACID3 is still missing 16 tests."

25 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. From the summary: by u-bend · · Score: 5, Funny

    Te new test... Shouldn't that be Teh new test...?
    --
    u-bend
    1. Re:From the summary: by explosivejared · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, no, no... As anyone can clearly see, that Te is an acronym for test engineering. So get off kdawson's back. We should appreciate his masterful skill at creating what's on the surface a fairly obvious typo, but in reality is a clever reference to the field that the article discusse.

      --
      I got a catholic block.
    2. Re:From the summary: by RobBebop · · Score: 4, Funny

      a clever reference to the field that the article discusse.

      discourse in social choice using selective spelling excuses?

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      Support the 30 Hour Work Week!!!
    3. Re:From the summary: by ShatteredArm · · Score: 5, Funny

      You only saw "Te" because your browser rendered it incorrectly.

  2. Re:I bet some devs are really pissed now by cyfer2000 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just tested, Opera 9.5Beta and Firefox 3 Beta3pre are pretty impressive.

    --
    There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
  3. Re:I bet some devs are really pissed now by tulmad · · Score: 4, Informative

    Firefox 2.0.0.10 fails the test
    Camino 1.0.3 crashes when starting the test
    Safari 2.0.4 doesn't even get started. It says I need to enable JavaScript, which is enabled.

    --
    "In case of emergency, break glass. Scream. Bleed to death."
  4. Re:I bet some devs are really pissed now by Bozzio · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Passing the ACID2 Test doesn't imply standard compliance. It just means the browsers implement a certain subset of the standards correctly (or effectively correctly).

    The ACID3 test won't be a test for standards compliance either. The way I see it it's just a tool to motivate developers to work TOWARDS standards compliance.

    The ACID3 test should, therefore, not be seen as a new set of standards. It's just a different subset of standards.

    --
    I just pooped your party.
  5. Various Scores by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 5, Informative

    Final scores of course are subject to change on the final test:

    • Firefox 3 beta 2 @ Windows XP: 62%*
    • Internet Explorer 7 @ Windows XP: Dear God... you need to try it yourself. Viewing the generated source is needed to see the result is 24%
    • Opera 9.5 build 9721 @ Windows XP: 65%
    • lynx and elinks @ Windows XP: No JavaScript support. :(
    • Opera 9.3 @ Wii: 61%
    • Opera 8.5 @ Nintendo DS: 1%

    * - script takes long enough to run that browser prompts you to kill it.

    1. Re:Various Scores by mzs · · Score: 4, Informative

      Safari 3.0.3 on Mac OS X 10.5.1 does 50%. It does not have the little colored squares as in the reference though.

    2. Re:Various Scores by Laebshade · · Score: 4, Informative

      lynx and elinks @ Windows XP: No JavaScript support. :(

      I don't know what versions you're using, but at least for elinks (and links), they both support javascript. Just has to be compiled in.

      eix elinks
      * www-client/elinks
                Available versions: 0.11.2 0.11.2-r1 0.11.3 {X bittorrent bzip2 debug finger ftp gopher gpm guile idn ipv6 javascript lua nls nntp perl ruby ssl unicode zlib}
                Homepage: http://elinks.or.cz/
                Description: Advanced and well-established text-mode web browser

      eix ^links$
      [I] www-client/links
                Available versions: (2) 2.1_pre26 2.1_pre28-r1
                      {X directfb fbcon gpm javascript jpeg livecd png sdl ssl svga tiff unicode}
                Installed versions: 2.1_pre28-r1(2)(21:18:19 11/07/07)(javascript ssl tiff unicode -X -directfb -fbcon -gpm -jpeg -livecd -png -sdl -svga)
                Homepage: http://links.twibright.com/
                Description: links is a fast lightweight text and graphic web-browser

      So while they do support javascript, they don't support iframes, and the test uses 3 of those.

    3. Re:Various Scores by Dak+RIT · · Score: 3, Informative

      Safari 3.0.4 on Windows using WebKit-r29380 (today's nightly build), Safari scores a 70/100.

  6. Re:I bet some devs are really pissed now by dvice_null · · Score: 4, Informative

    ACID2 and ACID3 tests don't test if browsers are standard compatible. They only test some features. To get better overview of the standards supports, try this page:
    http://www.webdevout.net/browser-support-summary?IE7=on&FX2=on&OP9=on&uas=CUSTOM

  7. Re:I bet some devs are really pissed now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, it isn't.

    Which is why the GP shouldn't be modded as "Insightful."

    The ACID Tests are meant to test certain parts of the proposed standards.

    Passing the Test doesn't imply standards compliance.
    BUT
    Standards compliances DOES imply passing the tests.

  8. Re:I bet some devs are really pissed now by ben+kohler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Finally, the bigger browsers are ACID2 compatible now. But suddenly those fuckers release a new ACID test. Now everybody's standard incompatible again. Let's see who succesfully implements ACID3 first. these aren't new standards, just a new test that sheds some light on how standards-incompatible our beloved browsers still are
  9. Where is the reference image from? by Aaron+Isotton · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Something I always wanted to know (applies to the older Acid tests, too): how do they render the reference image? Is someone creating them by hand? How do we know no mistake was made when creating the reference image?

    1. Re:Where is the reference image from? by patio11 · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's created by an advanced, custom-built browser which, for certain input, correctly renders a perfectly standards-compliant reference image. Just don't ask to use the browser on any other input.

      --
      Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
    2. Re:Where is the reference image from? by thue · · Score: 5, Interesting

      How do we know no mistake was made when creating the reference image?

      You don't

      I remember an article by the Apple guy who made ACID2 work on Safari (I think this was the first browser to make it work). One of the steps to get it working was to fix a bug in the test, when he couldn't make the reference result fit with what the test HTML said.

    3. Re:Where is the reference image from? by gsnedders · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yeah, it was David Hyatt who was working on getting Saf to pass (and got it to be the first browser to pass in any build, and the first to have a generally available release (i.e., a non-development build, even if public) -- the latter being the only thing that truly counts for passing the test).

      http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/archives/2005_04.html#008011 details the bug (in this case, it was the test itself that was wrong -- not the reference). The reference rendering for Acid3 is likely correct as the actual rendering isn't overly complex (the complexity is in the ECMAScript and DOM support), though with the complexity of some tests there could easily be bugs in the test again.

  10. Re:I bet some devs are really pissed now by paulpach · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is an easy to reproduce set of bugs someone else found on their browser.

    I would be glad to receive bug reports with an easy to use test case. It saves me the trouble of determining if it is a bug or not, coming up with a test case, the pain of communicating back and forth with the customer trying to find out what they are doing and how the bug is being triggered, etc. Also, this test suite will improve compatibility with other browsers so it will reduce bug reports in the long run.

    Why the heck would they be pissed?

  11. Re:I bet some devs are really pissed now by gsnedders · · Score: 3, Informative

    The ACID Tests are meant to test certain parts of the proposed standards.

    Everything in the ACID3 test is at an implementable stage (look at Anne's blog post in the summary (i.e., RTFA)), and has been since 2004.

  12. Re:I bet some devs are really pissed now by stewby18 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    > Firefox 2.0.0.10 fails the test
    > Camino 1.0.3 crashes when starting the test
    > Safari 2.0.4 doesn't even get started.

    Those aren't the current versions of any of those browsers--not even close in the case of Camino and Safari--so that's not a terribly interesting test list.

  13. Re:So.... by Arimus · · Score: 4, Informative

    Firefox is a major browser, however the version which passes ACID2 is Firefox 3, I think the first build which passed was around this time last year so either go with the development release (FF3 is currently in Beta).

    --
    --- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
  14. Re:I bet some devs are really pissed now by Dak+RIT · · Score: 3, Informative

    Safari 3 is available for both Tiger and Leopard. The 10.4.11 update includes Safari 3.

  15. Re:I bet some devs are really pissed now by jimbojw · · Score: 4, Informative

    After prompting me if I wanted to open empty.txt, it segfaulted my Konqueror with this backtrace:

    Using host libthread_db library "/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libthread_db.so.1".
    [Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
    [New Thread -1232832304 (LWP 8079)]
    [KCrash handler]
    #6 0xb609a9a1 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libkhtml.so.4
    #7 0xb5f325d4 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libkhtml.so.4
    #8 0x081e1f38 in ?? ()
    #9 0xbfcde5a4 in ?? ()
    #10 0xbfcde588 in ?? ()
    #11 0xb60fe4fd in DOM::NodeFilter::acceptNode () from /usr/lib/libkhtml.so.4
    Backtrace stopped: frame did not save the PC


    I think we have a zeroday on our hands boys!

  16. Re:I bet some devs are really pissed now by hixie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We write those tests too, they're called test suites and if you look at my site you'll find literally hundreds if not thousands of them:

          http://hixie.ch/tests/adhoc/

    The Acid tests are easier for the less technically inclined to get a hold of. In practice, the browser vendors take Acid tests and turn them into small tests of the kind you describe before fixing them. For Acid2, I was the one who did a number of those small tests for Opera (I worked for Opera at the time) -- you can see them here:

          http://www.hixie.ch/tests/evil/acid/002/opera001.html
          http://www.hixie.ch/tests/evil/acid/002/opera002.html
          http://www.hixie.ch/tests/evil/acid/002/opera003.html
          http://www.hixie.ch/tests/evil/acid/002/opera004.html
          http://www.hixie.ch/tests/evil/acid/002/opera005.html
          http://www.hixie.ch/tests/evil/acid/002/opera006.html
          http://www.hixie.ch/tests/evil/acid/002/opera007.html
          http://www.hixie.ch/tests/evil/acid/002/opera008.html
          http://www.hixie.ch/tests/evil/acid/002/opera009.html
          http://www.hixie.ch/tests/evil/acid/002/opera010.html
          http://www.hixie.ch/tests/evil/acid/002/opera011.html

    They're not as exciting as the smiley face, so they don't get the media's attention in the same way.