There are a few litmus tests for determining if one is a geek; I used to sit in math class programming my Texas Instruments calculator, I have camped out to see the new Star Wars movie (and subsequently felt personally insulted by Lucas), and I know who people are talking about when they refer to “The Woz” (Steve Wozniak for those of you playing along at home). As if those weren’t enough, I have stumbled upon a newish application developed by Adobe and I am genuinely excited about it.
https://browserlab.adobe.com/index.html
Adobe’s BrowserLab is, as Adobe puts it a, “web designers exact renderings of their web pages in multiple browsers and operating systems, on demand.” To which I say, “FINALLY!” This cool little application allows you to view what your styles are looking like (including javascript parsing!) in a wide variety of browsers and Operating Systems. It will even give you semi-transparent overlays of your page to allow you to more easily pinpoint those pesky single pixel problems, which Adobe calls “Onion Skin View.”
Unfortunately this application is in it’s testing phase, so it is only allowing a limited number of users to register for it, and I am assuming it will be bundled into an Adobe product later, but for now I would say try to get an account and let it save you some time with cross-browser testing.
As an aside, there are certainly techniques that one can use to reduce the amount of cross-browser compatibility style issues that come up in general. A lot of it can come down to preference, but I find that using a css reset file like Reset Reloaded puts all browsers on a more level css playing field.
Happy Stylin’ Y’all
