Are there any web-based services that will show me what my webpage looks like in different engines?

January 24, 2005 7:21 AM

Is there any web-based service that will image (render) a webpage using specific rendering engines, and then email or display the result? I'm developing on a Mac, and experiencing some weird Explorer 6 CSS problems, and don't have a PC handy to troubleshoot.
posted by jpburns to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

There's BrowserCam which may still have a free 24-hour trial.
posted by Hartster at 7:47 AM on January 24, 2005

Unfortunately this site only emulated really old browsers.
posted by ralawrence at 7:56 AM on January 24, 2005

Another nod for BrowserCam. I'm on a mac, too, and I was able to tweak some problems with my site within their trial period -- it was a lifesaver.
posted by Robot Johnny at 8:07 AM on January 24, 2005

Response by poster: BrowserCam is exactly what I had in mind.

I WISH they were more reasonable; I'd subscribe for a year if it was < $50 (instead of $479.40).br>
Thanks.
posted by jpburns at 8:30 AM on January 24, 2005

An alternate suggestion would be to install a virtual machine and put Windows on it. I've heard performance is very good on Macs. Not being a Mac user myself I wouldn't know which ones to suggest.
posted by furtive at 8:31 AM on January 24, 2005

An alternate suggestion would be to install a virtual machine and put Windows on it. I've heard performance is very good on Macs. Not being a Mac user myself I wouldn't know which ones to suggest.

Virtual machines are slow. If you have access to one, better to use a real Windows machine and a RDC client to view and control its desktop from your Mac.
posted by AlexReynolds at 8:40 AM on January 24, 2005

I also design my web pages on a Mac. While I do have a PC handy, I've noticed that IE 6 renders the pages just as incorrectly and usually with the exact same mistakes as the last release of IE for Mac, if that helps you at all.
posted by Captaintripps at 10:03 AM on January 24, 2005

Virtual machines are slow

I disagree...

Virtual machines are fairly quick on Macs due to the endian-agnosticism (oh what a sweet word) of the PowerPC architecture -- you can get Pentium II class performance using VirtualPC (formerly Connectix, now Microsoft) with anything G4 or better. That should more than suit your needs for testing out a web browser.

And just so this isn't a total derail, the 24-hour free trial is still available on BrowserCam :-).
posted by onalark at 10:12 AM on January 24, 2005

Virtual machines are fairly quick on Macs due to the endian-agnosticism (oh what a sweet word) of the PowerPC architecture

They removed this feature from the G5, which is why you need a new version of Virtual PC for the latest Macs. They had to go back to byte-swapping the old-fashioned way.
posted by kindall at 10:30 AM on January 24, 2005

Having used (and still, very occasionally, using) Virtual PC 7 for OS X on a dual 2.0GHz G5, I can vouch that it is really, really annoyingly slow to run XP. I've yet to try it with ME or 98SE, but I'm not sure that I could be bothered waiting.
posted by armoured-ant at 9:20 PM on January 24, 2005