Checking on other devices

[ZandraJoi]

When you do your designs, do you make sure to check not only on what you are using, say, a desktop, but also on a laptop & cell phone to see if it’s compatible? Have you found it looks way off & you’ve had to correct it on one of those? What about different browsers? Do you find the color may be off?

 

[Shortie]

When you do your designs, do you make sure to check not only on what you are using, say, a desktop, but also on a laptop & cell phone to see if it’s compatible? Have you found it looks way off & you’ve had to correct it on one of those? What about different browsers? Do you find the color may be off?

Whenever I make any changes to a forum, blog, or website I have I always make it a task to check on my phone and also on a few different browsers on my PC to ensure they look as they should on each device. If I am not happy with how they look on other devices away from my main device which is my PC and my main web browser, I will work on them until I do get them right.

 

[Arantor]

I always do a first pass using the browser's responsive mode to get me in the right ballpark for desktop/tablet/phone sizing, but will test on a real phone and tablet device for actual usability. I find the colour is rarely off but I'm using iPad/iPhone for mobile so that's rarely the issue in practice.

 

[Aaron]

I always check on my mobile if I change things or add things like a slider etc.

 

[Cory]

Yes, I generally check desktop and mobile devices when I code skins. Though, I think I'm a culprit for not doing this to a lot of themes I've coded because I didn't think about it or the theme didn't feel as important to me as other themes. It's great to make your themes responsive since so many people use both PCs and mobile devices these days, so you want your theme to look the best it can be on both systems.

 

[-JuNioR-]

I usually have no doubts about colors. The web runs on the sRGB color space, and results across devices and browsers are generally similar, except for Chrome, where I usually have to force the color profile. Compatibility checks for CSS selectors and properties are a must for me. I aim to test the design and new features on all possible browsers and devices at my disposal, and when that's not possible, cross-browser/cross-device test sites always come in handy.

 

[Cory]

cross-browser

That word makes me tremble at the thought of the days of checking for compatibility with Internet Explorer.

 

[-JuNioR-]

That word makes me tremble at the thought of the days of checking for compatibility with Internet Explorer.

Let's... let's just let it rest in peace, shall we

 

[Arantor]

That word makes me tremble at the thought of the days of checking for compatibility with Internet Explorer.

These days iDevice/Safari is the new IE holding folks back, Chrome is the one to test in and Firefox is the afterthought.

 

[Cory]

let's just let it rest in peace

Rest in *pieces.

These days iDevice/Safari is the new IE holding folks back, Chrome is the one to test in and Firefox is the afterthought.

Is that because they don't update the version on Windows any longer?

 

[Tracy]

When you do your designs, do you make sure to check not only on what you are using, say, a desktop, but also on a laptop & cell phone to see if it’s compatible? Have you found it looks way off & you’ve had to correct it on one of those? What about different browsers? Do you find the color may be off?

I check on Windows 10/11 Pro, macOS, IOS, Android (older version since I'm not buying a new Android phone), Ipad Pro (original large one), Galaxy Tablet and several versions of Linux along with multiple supported browsers. I only do this on major upgrades or style changes.. And I have found issues.. the most recent being for guests of the sight the login/register buttons not showing up... but that was fixed as far as I know.

 

[Arantor]

Is that because they don't update the version on Windows any longer?

Nah, Safari on Windows was an afterthought even back in the day (and virtually everyone who ever used it was in violation of the licence, but that's another story entirely)

The big thing is that they have the App Store. E.g. Android got push notifications ages ago - but Apple kept it back because they wanted people to go get apps in the store which guaranteed them their $99/year subscription plus a cut of any revenue from the apps. But since they've had a kick from the EU's competition regulators, they've suddenly pushed out a substantial update to Safari in iOS 16.4. Funny how that works.

 

[Cedric]

I don't think there's much point in checking multiple browsers other than mobile/iPad to desktops. But yes, I do check most of the devices and edit where needed.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I often will check out the mobile version of my site to make sure things look good and there's nothing broken. Thankfully most forum software is mobile friendly out of the box these days, so you don't really need a separate app like Tapatalk to get the results you want. Even most free hosts offer a mobile design automatically.

 

[Uncrowned]

Screenfly / Test Your Website at Different Screen Resolutions

Test your website on any screen size including desktops, tablets, televisions, and mobile phones.

screenfly.org

Screen Fly is a nice tool to test you site on stuff. Some software may need you to enable "embedding of you site" for the testing to work and the tester is a bit dated, but it still offers an easy way to run through a few devices without actually grabbing those devices.

 

[Karinama]

I don't know how it is these days, but I used to always check all my coding on FireFox, IE, and Chrome. I used to get irked having to fix design bugs on IE that were perfectly fine on FF and Chrome,