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Microsoft's New Multiple-Browser Tester
Z80xxc! writes "Microsoft recently announced a new product called Expression Web SuperPreview, which lets developers view their web pages in any browser installed on their system, as well as in different versions of IE, all from the same interface. The product has one genuine innovation — a built-in tool for overlaying the rendering from one browser over another to compare (referred to as 'onion skins'). There are also HTML debugging aids and other helpful tools for web developers. A beta version is available for download. However, the current build only has support for IE — it will compare rendering in IE6 with either IE7 or IE8, whichever is installed. An internal build shows Firefox and Safari on Windows as well. The final product will appear as part of MS Expression Web Studio 3 when it is released later this year. (It will not be available in the Expression Mac suite.)"
There is a free service that does the same thing: browsershots.org
IETester ( http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage ) will let you test rendering in IE5.5, IE6, IE7 and IE8 on the same machine - you're not limited to whichever of IE7 and 8 is installed.
Try telling that to a client who demands that her website "just works on my screen". Yes, every web developer wishes that IE would just go away, but it's a moot point. As long as 'normal' users continue to use IE because it's all they know - most clients I've dealt with just call it 'the internet', they don't even know what a browser is - we just have to pander. That's life.
Web pages should render the same in any browser, on any OS. The only difference should be in resolution.
Not really. HTML/CSS is not designed for pixel-perfect rendering, so you cannot reasonably expect that - for example, things such as word and line breaks, and word wrapping in general, are up to the user agent. Then, of course, you cannot guarantee that the user will have a specific font family installed, and CSS generic families are called "generic" for a reason. And so on.
The OP mentions that this is not available for the Mac version of the Expression suite.
This is because that doesn't exist. The Expression Media product is cross-platform, as it is a new version of iView, a cross-platform product Microsoft purchased.
http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/overview.aspx?key=media
The other products in Expression Studio began life as Windows-only products, and remain so.
That said, The Expression Professional Subscription does include a license for Parallels, so I suppose it's supported on Mac in that sense :).
http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/ProfessionalSubscription.aspx
My video compression blog
No they don't. Not relative to the differences between Trident and most other engines.
There may be some differences, but they're nothing when compared to IE's awful rendering engine. Just look at the broken box model, or the hasLayout flag for example.
For around the last five years my Web design job has always revolved around making things look right in standards compliant browsers, then hacking for IE. Look at the code of most sites these days and you'll see an IE-specific style sheet.
Your heart is firmly in the right place, but you're conclusions are faulty.
No version of HTML as ever been intended to be a page description language. If you want things to look a certain way use PostScript, PDF, or another language that is intended to give a specific layout.
HTML is intended to allow you to describe your content so that an agent can display it in accordance with the viewer's preferences.
The fundamental problem, even bigger than IE's lousy compliance, is that graphic designers seem to be the largest producers of HTML. They fall in love with their "brochure" designs and then foist them on the rest of us. Consumers of web sites would almost universally be better served if content providers would just stick to straightforward HTML, and allow agents to present the content in a way that suits the users' preferences, devices, visual acuity, etc.
-Peter
Actually, GNU Image Manipulation Program is quite an apt name.
Exactly. The problem isn't that IE6 was a bad browser for its era. The problem is that lots of people haven't upgraded to a more recent version, which is typical of the corporate managed desktop market.
IE7's been on the market for, what 2.5 years now? How many people are still running 2.5 year old versions of Firefox or Safari on thier personal desktops? Not many. And that's not something about IE in particular, but of some markets where IE is dominant. I don't imagine many avid gamers on Windows are running IE6, as a counterexample.
Had Windows bundled Netscape instead of IE, it'd be Netscape we'd be griping about today. But the real issue is how slow corporate desktops are to get updated for ANYTHING not required for security or line-of-business.
Windows Media Player 9, which was released back in 2003, has only become standard in corporate America in the last year or so, and there are some holdouts even there.
My video compression blog
Oh, very much not true. Webkit (either Chrome or Safari, take your pick) and Gecko render things very differently. Especially in regard to fonts. Not even Chrome and Safari render fonts the same way.
Different rendering of fonts (due to the anti-aliasing) method used, does not mean in the least that PAGES render differently. It's the layout that counts, not sub-pixel differences in antialiasing. This kind of font rendering differences is entirely outside the W3C specs.
There's also some weirdness related to boxes, but that should come as no surprise to anyone.
No, there aren't in 99.99% of cases...
There's also some weirdness related to boxes, but that should come as no surprise to anyone.
The only browser still in use with box model related problems is ie6.
I didn't experience *any* layout problem related to box model that made a page render differently between ff2/ff3/ie7/ie8/chrome
fonts handling differences on the other hand can be quite a pain in the ass