some thoughts on virtual browser testing

[chris raettig <chris@raettig.org>]

lying in my flat this week working on my website on my variety of 
unix platforms has given me the idea (and inclination) to work
on creating a reasonably straightforward service. i would be interested
to hear if this would be useful for anybody else out there, too.

the problem i have on the rare occasion that i can tolerate writing
html/css is that by choice i only have unix terminals to hand. i
always end up persuading other people to send me screenshots so i can
at least get an idea of whether my concoctions are rendering as intended
on other common platforms. i know i'm not the only person to face this
problem, and its something a lot of small companies have to face. proper
browser testing would involve a couple of dozen browsers over three
different platforms. 

what i'd *like* to be able to do, and have half a mind to enable, is
email a uri to a particular email address (testsuite@raettig.org).
this message would be received by a perl script and fed by
ipc to perl daemons running on three side-by-side beige boxes. one
running linux, a macintosh and a windows box. using the scripting
and macro facilities of each platform (tcl, applescript, vbscript)
the uri would be opened in a wide variety of browsers on each of
the machines, and screenshots captured which would be fed back to the
perl daemon. 

all of the screenshots once collated would be attached to an email
and mailed out along with the output from html/css validators. 
it is perfectly concievable that this could all be achieved in under
two minutes. whilst its no substitute for a real test suite, it 
would be very handy for getting an overview. 

if there was a wide general interest in such a service it may
be possible to allow free usage of the service with some form
of advertising being appended to the returned screenshots.