Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Compatibility Testing - Google Chrome

Google Chrome, the web browser  is here! 

My initial impression is quite good. I tried it with English, Hebrew and Russian sites, graphics, video, etc.

However, as a testing guy, I wouldn't settle for that. I don't know of any serious web application that works perfectly well across different browsers. JavaScript, video, fonts, exotic styles are part of the issue. There are custom plug-ins - Google, in their "how did we do it" comics, promised just yet rough treatment for these.  There are unique technologies like XFD and such. There is an endless variety of other fruits of programmers' creativity that might stumble as well when approached through the new browser.

Long story short: if you want to be sure your web application works with Google Chrome - TEST IT. Compatibility tests, when planned correctly and done well, can reveal most of the problems your users will encounter - and all that in a fraction of time usually required for the full-blown System tests.

We at Conflair can help you - see our page on Google Chrome Compatibility Tests. If you have questions, feel free to e-mail me at michael.yudanin@conflair.com.

P.S. Just found an image link on my own Conflair webpage that would not work in Google Chrome. Works perfectly well in IE and Firefox... After some exploration, I found that the problem was the good old .onclick property for the image object.

Here is the problem and the fix:

Problem code:

animArr[i].onclick = "ConflairServices/"+tmpArr[0];
}
function Switch()
{
document.FeaturedService.src = animArr[imgNumber].src;
document.getElementById("OpenFeaturedService").href = animArr[imgNumber].onclick;


The fix (based on abusing the .name property of the image object):

animArr[i].name = "ConflairServices/"+tmpArr[0];
}
function Switch()
{
document.FeaturedService.src = animArr[imgNumber].src;
document.getElementById("OpenFeaturedService").href = animArr[imgNumber].name;


2 comments:

adir1 said...

My understanding is that current Chrome beta running a slightly older version of WebKit, which powers Safari browser.
So, effectively, if you have been testing for Safari compatibility in the past, Chrome would work just fine.

Michael Yudanin said...

"So, effectively, if you have been testing for Safari compatibility in the past, Chrome would work just fine." - wishful thinking... What about the GUI layer? The non-WebKit components? The effects of the security? The OS? Also, how many people tested their apps for Safari compatibility :)