Comments on: Cross browser testing on your Intel-based Mac

By: marko

marko — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 14:36:25 +0000

We are lucky to have some spare licenses left from our MS Action Pack (the majority of web.burza developers are still on PCs), so no problem with that.

Multiple IE pack comes in handy when you’re testing some minor bugs, but if you use conditional comments to deliver different style sheets to each IE version, it’s not very helpful, since the Windows Registry always sends the original installation version string.

By: Jason Beaird

Jason Beaird — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 13:45:37 +0000

Here in our office, we have several designers and we all end up having to do browser testing at times. Given the cost of 4-5 individual Windows licenses, we just have a PC setup in a closet with the Multiple IE pack (that Hamish mentioned above) and remote desktop into it. Here, we use Microsoft's RDC client, but I basically did the same thing when I worked from home using the RealVNC on the PC and accessing it with Chicken of the VNC on the mac.

By: Mediaman_12

Mediaman_12 — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 11:55:46 +0000

You could have mentioned CrossOver which allows you to run Windows app’s on Intel Macs without any ‘emulation’. Don’t know if you can get it to run IE7 though.

By: marko

marko — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 06:31:40 +0000

Hamish, thanks for the link!

Jon–Michael, I never heard of Q, but it sounds interesting. Setting-up a local web server and testing sites in guest machines from a local server is a story for another time. However, if you have more practical tips, be my guest!

By: JM

JM — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 04:15:30 +0000

You forgot to mention Q, which is an open-source alternative to Parallels. Works well, but no drag and drop like Parallels. The easiest way to test is to store all your dev files in /Library/WebServer/Documents/ or ~/Sites/ (turn on personal web sharing), then in Windows, enter your network address like 192.168.1.1 to see your sites.

By: Hamish M

Hamish M — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 18:47:41 +0000

Great article Marko. This is going to come in handy (as much as I hate having to test in all those browsers / OS’s)

One tip, for Windows users, is the Multiple IE pack from TredoSoft — it let’s you test in IEs from version 6 all the way back to 3.0!