October 27, 2005

Cross browser javascript/css development issues

I'm working on an application that needs to be supported on a wide variety of browsers, and unfortunately includes some interesting javascript and css. There are three problems we've encountered so far.

1. Finding Browser share

When you want to support most users, you have to try to figure out what they're using. There are at least three or four different sites which give you their browser share, but I think you have to pay if you want really accurate, detailed information; here's one source, here's another, and here's one last site. Update, 11/3: here are stats for the www.bbc.co.uk homepage.

2. Javascript specifications

Perhaps it's just me, but I've had a devil of a time finding a list of javascript events supported by various browsers. I'll give it to Microsoft, they have some documentation on supported events; I couldn't find a similar list of events anywhere on the mozilla site. Here's the Mozilla Javascript page but I don't see anything resembling an API there. (All I want is a javascript javadoc!) Here is the best comparison of event support on modern browsers that I found. Update 10/31: here is a list of events that Gecko recognizes.

3. Getting ahold of old browsers and older operating systems, so you can test

Luckily, this is fairly easy to solve. VMWare (which I've written about previously) takes care of the various operating systems (well, that and a mac mini) that we need to test under. And a simple google search turned up a fantastic archive of old browsers: browsers.evolt.org, which has many different browsers going all the way back to NCSA Mosaic!.

Posted by moore at October 27, 2005 08:09 PM
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