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Suggested Web Browser Testing Environment

Web Framework Tips
Mobile Testing & Debugging Environments

We test on a number of different browsers and versions. As you probably know, the behaviors of browsers can vary wildly, and it is the despair of all web programmers that they must write browser-specific work-around code to handle these differences. It is our intention that the Web framework will insulate you from these differences.

We currently do most of our development using Chrome or Firefox. We recommend that you do the same. We also recommend that you download Firebug, which is a very good Firefox client-side debugging tool. While we do not expect that you will need to understand how to use a browser debugging tool, learning to use this tool can be very useful. In particular, you can see every single request/response that is back and forth between client and server. Chrome has an excellent built-in client-side debugging feature without requiring add-on tools like Firebug.

When testing your web application, even if you don’t know what is being sent between client and server, it is sometimes quite useful to know when it is being sent.

It is even pretty easy to see this information. The data is exchanged using JSON, and Firebug provides a nice JSON inspector. This is a great learning tool.

If you discover browser-rendering irregularities, here is how you can narrow down the issues before reporting them to us:

  1. First, determine if you see the same problem on Firefox. This helps us and you determine if we are looking at a browser-specific issue.
  2. If at all possible, see if you can reproduce this in our WebOrder example. Either change one of our views or see if you can add a similar problem view to this workspace.
  3. Are the results the same with the Studio’s Designer and the browser running the application? Our Designer uses the COM IE control to display, while your runtime browser may well be different.
  4. Make sure that this is not a browser caching issue as described below. Ensure you refresh your browser cache.

When you report issues, make sure you let us know your browser type and version. We appreciate seeing screenshots. We particularly appreciate seeing samples we can run in the WebOrder sample.

Browser Caching Issues

During the alpha and beta processes, you are going to hear us ask over and over, “Are you sure this is not a caching issue? Have you refreshed your cache?” When it comes to caching information, each browser seems to have a mind of its own. In particular, the caching of JavaScript and CSS can be difficult to control. During the alpha and beta process, our JavaScript engine will change frequently. When in doubt, refresh your cache. This can usually be done by selecting “Refresh” in the browser’s context menu. Note that refreshing your browser and the Studio previewer are separate steps. You will want to refresh both.

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