Web page tester - an idea?

After my experience with putting up an applet which looked
differently in Linux, Windows, and on the Mac (and also after the
discussion about default line-height, different in Linux), I
thought: would it be possible for somebody to create a service for
Web designers in which you could enter the URL of a page, then
select the desired OS and/or browser, perhaps other parameters
like screen size, Java version, etc., and have it send back a
screenshot of how it is rendered on the selected system? Would
such a service be useful? Does it already exist, perhaps?

Regards, Jan

Re: Web page tester - an idea?

JWS wrote:
> After my experience with putting up an applet which looked
> differently in Linux, Windows, and on the Mac (and also after the
> discussion about default line-height, different in Linux), I
> thought: would it be possible for somebody to create a service for
> Web designers in which you could enter the URL of a page, then
> select the desired OS and/or browser, perhaps other parameters
> like screen size, Java version, etc., and have it send back a
> screenshot of how it is rendered on the selected system? Would
> such a service be useful? Does it already exist, perhaps?

www.browsershots.org.

Re: Web page tester - an idea?

Harlan Messinger wrote:
> JWS wrote:
>> After my experience with putting up an applet which looked
>> differently in Linux, Windows, and on the Mac (and also after the
>> discussion about default line-height, different in Linux), I
>> thought: would it be possible for somebody to create a service for
>> Web designers in which you could enter the URL of a page, then
>> select the desired OS and/or browser, perhaps other parameters
>> like screen size, Java version, etc., and have it send back a
>> screenshot of how it is rendered on the selected system? Would
>> such a service be useful? Does it already exist, perhaps?
>
> www.browsershots.org.

This is 'cool' .. just about like I thought it should have to be.
It does not work terribly well yet:

-- it is a bit on the slow side, with a response time of 30
minutes.
-- in my test the applet was invisible (although I had selected
'Java enabled').
-- it does not know about MATHML.

But I expect it will improve. I am glad it exists.

Regards, Jan

Re: Web page tester - an idea?

JWS wrote:
> Harlan Messinger wrote:
>> JWS wrote:
>>> After my experience with putting up an applet which looked
>>> differently in Linux, Windows, and on the Mac (and also after the
>>> discussion about default line-height, different in Linux), I
>>> thought: would it be possible for somebody to create a service for
>>> Web designers in which you could enter the URL of a page, then
>>> select the desired OS and/or browser, perhaps other parameters
>>> like screen size, Java version, etc., and have it send back a
>>> screenshot of how it is rendered on the selected system? Would
>>> such a service be useful? Does it already exist, perhaps?
>> www.browsershots.org.
>
> This is 'cool' .. just about like I thought it should have to be.
> It does not work terribly well yet:
>
> -- it is a bit on the slow side, with a response time of 30
> minutes.

Well, it's rather popular and it's processor- and network-intensive!

> -- in my test the applet was invisible (although I had selected
> 'Java enabled').
> -- it does not know about MATHML.