Never heard of anything like that. It is mainly trial and error – install as many browsers as you can, check your design on different OS platforms.
It exists. Been alluded to elsewhere in the forum but I don’t have a name for it.
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Validate it with that and it will work in all browsers
Thank you. And they said it couldn’t be done! 🙂
“And they said it couldn’t be done”
Not quite. You asked for a free tool to check “for cross-browser compatibility”, which the w3 validator doesn’t do. It just checks for valid CSS, that’s it. There’s a pretty big difference between the two.
Rudolf’s right, you’ll have to test manually all the versions you’re willing to support.
Exactly, it checks for valid css. You obviously miss the whole point of validating. The point is; if it’s valid, it conforms to a standard, and that standard is there so sites work across all platforms. So yes, in a way it does check for cross-browser compatibility.
@tov3,
BS… you can have a perfectly valid site with perfect CSS and still not displaying as you wanted in all browsers. (Although, have to admit, the chances are better when having a valid code.)
if it’s valid, it conforms to a standard, and that standard is there so sites work across all platforms
Well, it works across all platforms that conform to the standard. Unfortunately, very many people use Internet Explorer 6 (and to a lesser extent 7) which definitely don’t fall into that category.
Anyway, there are some ambiguities in the standard, and each browser has its own interpretation. A well-written page will be readable in any browser, but if you want your fancy design to line up correctly to the pixel, you need to test it.
