Guidelines to Check the Cross-Browser Compatibility of Your Website
Understanding the Importance of Cross-Browser Compatibility
Cross-Browser Compatibility refers to the ability for a website, web application, or client-side script to run perfectly and with the same visual and functional effects among multiple web browsers the currently available. If your website is cross-browser compatibility it means that visitors from all around the world would have a consistent using experience regardless of whatever browser they are using.
Cross browser compatibility becomes a very important issue for every webmaster due to the fact that many different browsers (both the popular options such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera etc and some other not so popular options, like Konqueror etc.). Visitors who are viewing your website have a multitude of browser choices. As long as you expect to convert them to your regular readers or even customers, you need to consider every visitor as “god” and make your website to get a beautiful and intuitive design to look exactly perfect. In brief, cross-browser compatibility is essential and crucial. In this article, I will show you some guidelines to achieve this goal.
Where to test Cross-Browser Compatibility
You may not like to install so many different browsers on your device. Generally speaking, you may design a website or a blog for one specific browser that is installed on your personal computer. When you use your browser to view your website, you will find out that your website function quite well on your browser; however, it is possible that some unpleasant surprise may occur on some other browser. You can’t expect all people to be using the same web browser as yours. Therefore, you may wonder how your website performs on the rest of browsers currently available. Fortunately, here I have found some online resources to help you out. Following are some online tools you can use to test your website cross-browser compatibility for free.
1.Browsershots.org
This website is a free and most popular cross-platform multiple browsers compatibility test utility for web designers. Simply enter your website address in the required field and choose the browser that you need to check, you will be provided with different screenshots of your websites on these different browsers (including all the versions of IE, Firefox, Safari and Opera). If it is necessary, you can also select different screen resolutions to view the results.
2.browserlab.adobe.com
This is another website where you are provided with a service to take of your site in different browsers and report them back to you. It offers an awesome solution for viewing on demand screenshots of your site.
3.IE Tester
Internet Explorer especially the older versions (IE6, IE7) are notorious for “annoying bugs”. One of the most curial things to do for your web development project is to test the website layout in those browsers and fix any problems as soon as possible. IE tester allows you to check how your website looks and feels on all the IE versions on different Operating Systems (Windows7, Vista and XP).
By the way, it may be a bit time consuming to check all of the browsers if you are really a busy person. However, following key browsers you should never missed while checking your website compatibility.
•Microsoft Internet Explorer 6
•Microsoft Internet Explorer 7
•Mozilla Firefox
•Opera Software’s Opera Web Browser
•Apple Safari — Used on most Mac operating systems
Tips to Make Your Website Cross-Browser Compatible
Tip1. Validate your website
Many of unpleasant bugs are caused by invalid HTML or CSS. Getting your website validated, it will be much easier for you to expect cross-browser compatibility. The W3C Validation Service validates multiple versions of (X) HTML and it also output many useful errors and warnings which are really helpful for you to build a perfectly consistent website. Therefore, my first tip for you is to validate your HTML code with the W3C validator and your CSS file with the W3C CSS validator.
Tip2. Define valid doctype
It is necessary to define your valid dectype so that the browser will able to know what rules will be used in your code. If you have not address the specific rules, then you are asking the browser to guess then different browser will of high likely come up with different results.
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
With the help of the above code, you are able to design “strict mode,” where IE versions will display the closest effect to that of Firefox, Safari and other modern browsers. Or else, Internet Explorer will operate in a “quirks mode” where it tries to emulate the behavior of the outdated browsers.
Tip3. Apply CSS reset
If you have ever used a CSS reset for any project, you will definitely find out that your ability to create a cross-browser experience has dramatically increased. As a general rule, different browsers behave according to their default css rules; however, this can be changed with a CSS reset, where you are able to define CSS so as to make the same behaviors for different browser. Eric’s CSS reset is very popular and often used among website developer.
Tip4. Use conditional comments:
You are advised to use conditional comments rather than CSS hacks. With conditional comments, you are allowed to link to separate style sheets for different browsers. You can find more information on quirksmode.
Final tip: Start your development with Internet Explorer (if possible)
Although you might annoyed by IE6 and IE7 and refuse to use them in your everyday online activities. However, I would like to tell you that it is much easier to get a layout working first in these IE browsers then fix for other browsers, than to do it the other way around. If you do not want to waste your valuable time, start your website development from there will ease the development process.
Conclusion
When talking about cross-browser compatibility, there are many things should be included. What mentioned in this article are simple some basic practices and guidelines for webmasters who is eager to achieve consistent users experience cross different browsers. We would like to hear your thought about cross browser compatibility, please leave a comment at our blog.
