Browsershots looks to be a free (as in beer), easy, one-stop way to test your site’s appearance in multiple browsers. You probably want your site to look good for everyone, regardless of what browser they’re using. This project makes it easy to see how you’re doing, including offering some old old browsers.
Four easy steps:
- Paste your url into the textbox
- Select browsers, one or all. Currently you can test in:
- Dillo 0.8
- Epiphany 2.14
- Firebird 0.7
- Firefox 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 3.0
- Flock 0.7
- Galeon 2.0
- Konqueror 3.5
- Mozilla 1.7
- Navigator 4.8
- Opera 9.0
- Phoenix 0.5
- SeaMonkey 1.0
- MSIE 5.0, 5.5, 6.0, 7.0
- Safari 2.0
- Configure settings including:
- Screen resolution
- Colour depth
- javascript
- java
- Macromedia Flash
- Media plugins
- maximum wait time
- Submit the job and wait
You can check the queue and see where you sit – and it will also show you who else is sitting in queue ahead of you. A longer queue means a longer wait. I spotted drupal.org and BBC News in line behind me.
Results come back as screenshots with the browser labeled underneath. You can click on each screenshot to enlarge the view but you have to check the text under the shot to see what you’re getting. It would be nice to see a title tag come up on mouseover, to put an end to the scrolling up and down, but other than that, so far, so good.
I set it to a long wait so I could just check back later, refresh the page and see different shots as they’re returned.
After 30 minutes I had results for Konqueror 3.5.5. on Linux, Safari 2.0 on Mac OS, and MSIE 6.0 on Windows. Everything was as expected, including a reminder of what a headache MSIE is.
Even more fun than browsing WordPress themes is looking through Browsershots’ recent screenshots page. Also check out the screenshot factories specs and images. My favourite is runt.
If you find it helpful, send postcards, pizza, and proposals to Johann C. Rocholl, Allmandring 3F122, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany. If that’s not possible, you could run a screenshot factory, help with the wiki documentation, or donate through paypal.
hat tip Torley Lives.