Test IE on your Intel Mac
RetroGraffica (35 points) | Fri, 2008-01-11 13:41I've noticed a lot of people talking about having extra PC's to test their sites in IE, and I know you could use Parallels etc, but who wants to keep restarting or jumping over to another computer when you're fiddling with css files?. I found this after a bit of searching because the PC laptop I used for testing died for the 3rd time and was beyong resuscitating.
Q Switcher lets you run any other operating system on your Intel Mac (I'm actually running Windows 98!) and switch between them without restarting. You've no idea how much easier this has made my testing life.
Hope this is of use.
Another good one if you're doing this is smcFanControl which lets you set your minimum fan speed a little higher and keep the temperature of your Mac down, especially useful for MacBook Pros - mine currently runs at around 50-60 degrees, so you can actually put your laptop on your lap without getting second degree burns.
\m/
"Who are you going to believe - me or your eyes?" - Groucho Marx
Another cool app is Multiple IE which lets you download all versions of IE instead of just IE7. It just doesn't work on Vista:
http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE
----
Powerpoint is not a design application
My latest web design work
----
The Salon Design Tech
Thanks, I've been wondering how to do that, I was just going to *find* a copy of XP and put IE7 on that
************************************
Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in square holes. The ones who see things differently.
"Who are you going to believe - me or your eyes?" - Groucho Marx
Sure! I stumbled upon it and it's been a godsend. IE6 and 7 are nearly different beasts. :)
----
Powerpoint is not a design application
My latest web design work
----
The Salon Design Tech
Haha! Yeah, they're definately 'beasts'! Probably some kind of sloth.
I am waiting for the day when we can proclaim "The Explorer is dead! Long live the Firefox!"
"Who are you going to believe - me or your eyes?" - Groucho Marx
a GREAT add-on is the IE-Tab
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419
____________________________________________
Architectural Technician - Multimedia Designer
www.ArchMedia.us
Isn't that a bit of a moot point? If it's only available for PC then you've got IE anyway?
Develop it for Mac and you've got a winner!
"Who are you going to believe - me or your eyes?" - Groucho Marx
thought they'd done a mac friendly version for firefox-mac..
I'm on PC till i get a new mac, and even then, i uninstall IE cause it's junk. I use this inside FF for testing..
my bad..
____________________________________________
Architectural Technician - Multimedia Designer
www.ArchMedia.us
I wish you swift journey back to the iWorld
"Who are you going to believe - me or your eyes?" - Groucho Marx
Man, just another reason for me to upgrade. The list is getting long...
My chair gets a workout rotating between the PC and mac. It's getting pretty squeeky.
Cool tip. Thanks.
-Shawn
http://www.ssarts.com
I've never been one for upgrading unless I need to, so when we started our business early in 2006 I bought one of the first gen MacBook Pros. I used my iMac G4 as a main machine (aside from web dev work) up until a few weeks ago when our son was born and I was forced to use the laptop to work on for everything. I've now switched to using the laptop full time until I can get a replacement for our old iMac, the difference is unbelievable!
Good luck getting a new Mac, I'm just waiting for Macworld to see what new wonders are unleashed
"Who are you going to believe - me or your eyes?" - Groucho Marx
What are the main differences you've found? I started my business in the last month using a MacBook and a G4 but since I've only ever used PCs before this I'm curious as to the differences you've found.
Everything just feels 'tighter' somehow. Maybe it's because the G4 still has Panther and the laptop has Tiger on it. I don't know if you know, but Adobe on intel macs was a massive problem for a while, apparently it ran much better on the PowerPC chips. I've now got CS3 on the laptop and it's blazingly fast
"Who are you going to believe - me or your eyes?" - Groucho Marx
I love the Unity mode, and Fusion keeps the Apple+R refresh hotkey for both IEs.
I'm a little confused here... Parallels doesn't require a restart to run. You can run it right in OS X just like any other app. Granted, it's not free but it's been around for a while and works exceptionally well.
And regarding MultipleIE, this is an okay way to test on a PC but conditional comments won't work as expected so beware of that.
****************************************
chipgrafx.com
****************************************
chipgrafx.com
Or how about this Run Internet Explorer natively using WINE works wonders for me.
Hey all,
these tips and links a great. But what about us old PowerPC users? I know of Virtual PC and Guest PC. I am running an older version of Guest PC and I must admit that it is anything but fast. It'll do if you have a LOT of time for testing. But it's a bit dreadful.
That Darwine version sounded absolutely great, but requires a Intel mac. Darn. So for all you developer out there, any PowerPC software you're using? And why do you like it?
Hey all,
these tips and links a great. But what about us old PowerPC users? I know of Virtual PC and Guest PC. I am running an older version of Guest PC and I must admit that it is anything but fast. It'll do if you have a LOT of time for testing. But it's a bit dreadful.
That Darwine version sounded absolutely great, but requires a Intel mac. Darn. So for all you developer out there, any PowerPC software you're using? And why do you like it?
I was using an iMac G4 for years and never came across any 'switching' software. I had to buy an old PC laptop secondhand for testing, but when it crashed and burned for the 3rd time (£40 each time to resurrect it!) I decided my money was better spent on buying an intel mac, you can pick Mac mini's up on ebay for a couple of hundred these days.
Sorry, but I think it's the 'intel inside' that makes running windows on a Mac possible :(
"Who are you going to believe - me or your eyes?" - Groucho Marx
Um, yeah! Except for Virtual PC, which was an emulator...
----
Powerpoint is not a design application
My latest web design work
----
The Salon Design Tech
VMWare Fusion is great for running Windows in a mac.
How do I browse my local site in the mac from an XP virtual machine in VMWare Fusion?
I tried browsign the host IP (which is dynamic) but it does not work. I know it's probably some DNS settings I need on the mac side.
Anyone doing something similar?
thanks
I've been running Windows on my Intel Mac Pro using Sun's VIRTUAL BOX. It is both excellent and FREE (and let's face it, in the Mac world, FREE is a fairly rare commodity).
I've been using it to run the Windows 7 BETA build and it works exceptionally well.
To keep IE6 in line with testing, I recommend using the Google Code IE7 JAVASCRIPT by Dead Edwards, which transforms IE5 and IE6 into standards compliant browsers (fixing the box model, etc.)
Hope this is helpful.
Craig Michael Patrick
http://cmpatrick.com
If only the silly people still stuck on IE 6 (or, gasp, 5!) knew about this javascript plugin. If they did, they'd probably just upgrade like they should have years ago.
I wouldn't depend on that for testing, so probably best to not use it in your workflow as a result.
----
The Salon Design Tech
It works famously. I use it frequently, because in an uncontrolled environment (and the Internet is precisely that), that solution seems better than resorting to either conditional statements or tables. I don't see the value in adding time to the bill with multiple CSS stylesheets for browsers (beyond the screen vs. print sheets).
There's no escaping the fact that MOST corporations are largely stuck with IE6 for the foreseeable future. That's just the way of it. So if you have a site that's viewed by corporate America - the IE7 javascript is a good bet.
I agree wholeheartedly, though. I wish that the Internet as a whole would just dump IE, but it's not going to happen.
As Google recently noted, the vast majority of Internet users probably don't even know what a browser is.
Craig Michael Patrick
http://cmpatrick.com
Is the software free to use?
A.B.
http://www.insidethatad.blogspot.com/
...are you referring to?
Craig Michael Patrick
http://cmpatrick.com
"you could use Parallels etc, but who wants to keep restarting or jumping over to another computer when you're fiddling with css files?"
You've never used Parallels, have you?
Jack
----
BRANDING | PRINT | WEB
www.jhousedesign.com
----