I am a web designer. Seeing as how Internet Explorer is the world browser, I am finding myself creating content on my Mac only to have the client report back to me that there are fitment and display errors with HTML, Flash, everything. These are the type of errors that need to be solved in Internet Explorer first and THEN tested in FireFox and Safari, not the other way around.

I am finding myself frustrated as it's hard to diagnose display errors when I cannot SEE them. I guess that is a testament to the superiority of Safari (considering it's not displaying these errors) however I am highly inconvenienced by having to boot up my old PC (of which I thought I would never use again upon buying my Mac) JUST to use Internet Explorer.

I know that Microsoft discontinued it's IE for Mac years ago and probably will never start it up again. Does anyone have any suggestions? Are there any IE plugins for Safari or FireFox? It sounds a little counter-intuitive but I NEED to see errors.

What about spoofing the user agent under Safari's Develop menu?

What about spoofing the user agent under Safari's Develop menu?

Can you tell me how to do this? I don't see Develop anywhere.

What about spoofing the user agent under Safari's Develop menu?

Explorer sucks because of how it renders pages. Changing the user agent isn't going to change that at all.

Can you tell me how to do this? I don't see Develop anywhere.

Safari > Preferences > Advanced:
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Don't know how much help it is going to be to you, tho'.........

If I were you I'd buy the cheapest PC you can find and run it beside your Mac. Hook them both up to a router so you can check the pages as you go.
You can experience the wonders of Windows and IE and revel in Microsoft's refusal to follow any standards.
You could also do it with a virtual environment (VM or Parallels) but switching back and forth between OS X and Windows would likely drive you insane.

This unfortunately did not do anything.

Safari appears to be the worst (read: best). It is not displaying errors that I am now able to see on FireFox.

I know this sounds CRAZY but not having IE may be a dealbreaker for me and my MBP.

If I were you I'd buy the cheapest PC you can find and run it beside your Mac. Hook them both up to a router so you can check the pages as you go.
You can experience the wonders of Windows and IE and revel in Microsoft's refusal to follow any standards.
You could also do it with a virtual environment (VM or Parallels) but switching back and forth between OS X and Windows would likely drive you insane.

I know that this is NOT Apple's fault, but I just SHOULD NOT have to go to so much trouble!

Dude, yer complaining that Safari isn't and can't be made to be as broken as IE? ROFL!

What you need to do is to download and install VirutalBox (http://www.virtualbox.org/) for the Mac. Then you need to find yourself a Windows XP image to run in VirtualBox to get IE 6, 7 or 8. VirtualBox is the free alternative to Parallels or Fusion and is ideal for these kinds of uses.

Even the Firefox plugin to use IE for rendering web pages is a Windows-only thing.

Dude, yer complaining that Safari isn't and can't be made to be as broken as IE? ROFL!

What you need to do is to download and install VirutalBox (http://www.virtualbox.org/) for the Mac. Then you need to find yourself a Windows XP image to run in VirtualBox to get IE 6, 7 or 8. VirtualBox is the free alternative to Parallels or Fusion and is ideal for these kinds of uses.

Even the Firefox plugin to use IE for rendering web pages is a Windows-only thing.

I know, it's a weird thing to complain about but for what I do, seeing errors is a good thing (because then I can fix them before the client has to Email me and tell me about them, probably thinking I'm stupid for not catching them in the first place).

How does VirtualBox work? Because I do have Windows 7 installed on my MacBook Pro (through BootCamp). (The reason why I'm not using that by the way is because I can't figure out how to tether my BlackBerry to Vista/7 so that I can use it as a modem - but even if I could do this it would still be a bit annoying to have to shut down to just view IE), Is VirtualBox better than this solution?

VirtualBox (or Parallels or VMware Fusion) run Windows in a window in Mac OS X. No need to reboot yer Mac into Windows like with BootCamp. Most resources available to Mac OS X (networking for example) are available to Windows running this way.

VirtualBox (or Parallels or VMware Fusion) run Windows in a window in Mac OS X. No need to reboot yer Mac into Windows like with BootCamp. Most resources available to Mac OS X (networking for example) are available to Windows running this way.

Cool! I'm going to check this out. Thanks!

That's a statement I never thought I would read on this forum.

I can share what I do ... I have a version of Windows XP that I fire up towards the end of the development process, and before the client lays their eyes on it. I use VMWare but Parallels does a similar job. I do a quick test in IE6, IE7 and IE8 and make a few final adjustments.

I very rarely have issues with IE7 or 8, though IE8 has some issues with jQuery that I can't suss out yet. IE6 is a constant thorn for many developers, myself included. I haven't officially supported it since January but so many still use it that it's tough to ignore it altogether.

I am a web designer. Seeing as how Internet Explorer is the world browser, I am finding myself creating content on my Mac only to have the client report back to me that there are fitment and display errors with HTML, Flash, everything. These are the type of errors that need to be solved in Internet Explorer first and THEN tested in FireFox and Safari, not the other way around.

A couple of things to consider before you start "designing" for IE first.

It is rapidly losing market share (it's down to almost 65%) with no signs of picking up the pace. If the trend continues, it will be below 50% next year.

It's also the least standards compliant browser. You're doing yourself a huge disservice by building for IE, rather than to standards.

A couple of things to consider before you start "designing" for IE first.

It is rapidly losing market share (it's down to almost 65%) with no signs of picking up the pace. If the trend continues, it will be below 50% next year.

It's also the least standards compliant browser. You're doing yourself a huge disservice by building for IE, rather than to standards.


Trust me, I know! But the fact is that right NOW, IE is the world's choice (or, maybe not choice, but what is included on their Windows PC's). Even if it only had 50% of the marketshare, even 30%, I still have to account for that percentage.

If you think IE is going under, you're sorely mistaken. While it's marketshare probably will continue to drop, it's not going anywhere. And I have to account for that.

I still haven't tried the above suggestion that I said I would try so I'll post my experience with it.

What is Netscape Navigator's market share these days?

What is Netscape Navigator's market share these days?

Macosxhints latest poll results - of course this is Mac-centric... Most Windows users I know currently use FireF*cks....
10546

Design for a web standards capable browser (FireFox, Safari) and then check against IE6, IE7, IE8. Doing it the other way around (designing for IE and then fixing other issues) will cause you some grief. IE's rendering engine has some pretty strange ideas on how it should render things.

One of these versions Microsloth might actually get closer to being able to follow the standards that other browsers are doing a much better job of.

One of these versions Microsloth might actually get closer to being able to follow the standards that other browsers are doing a much better job of.

IE8 follows the standards (unless you tell it not to!).

I am a web designer. Seeing as how Internet Explorer is the world browser,

Actually wrong - Internet Exploder is a proprietary browser only available for M$ Windoze. The "world explorer" of choice these days is most definitely FireFox, which has a huge market share that is growing every day, and is available on pretty much all platforms in common use. I know of only a handful that use Micro$lop IE all on older machines; while Windoze IE inhabits many systems but goes unused because most people are using FireFox or some other browser of their choice.

If you are having problems creating a web site that will render correctly on IE, then the problem is with whatever tools you are using to create web sites. Perhpas you are using too many freaky functions that are not implemented correctly, or are overreliant on CSS (of which IE can't seem to get right even though the Evil Empire developed CSS).

As for diagnosing... If the requirement of making money is to create shoddy web sites with inadequate tools that will not render correctly on regular web browsers on a variety of platforms - then that dictates buying some kind of nasty Windoze box, which really, is a dirt cheap investment. Using something like a virtualizer or BootCamp will not fit the bill, since no matter what emulator you would use, you will still be running IE on a Mac, where you will not have the full experience of the millions of layers of bugs, flaws, and imperfections that are offered by the PC experience. If you are making cash - then swallow the pill and run the old kruftbox.

When it comes down to it, whoever is paying you is loosing out on business, having a shoddy web site that doesn't render correctly - especially in an age when many people are all about FlashBlock and going somewhere else if it takes more than 5 seconds to load a website.

But then, that doesn't matter if you are making cash, so if the cash is worth the time, then just let old Windoze go to town - it's not your business that is being flushed down the toilet with bad rendering that will lead most potential customers to go somewhere else where they can get onto a decent site that renders correctly, does not need a bunch of workarounds, is not filled with pathetic animation sequences, and will run on their machines without needing technical tomfoolery....

On my sites, I suggest they upgrade to a standard broswer that is secure. and provide the links for Safari and Firefox and Opera.

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/chartfx62/temp/CFT0922_014247126DF.gif

Source: netapplications.com

Don't delude yourselves - IE ain't going away soon.

As for diagnosing... Using something like a virtualizer or BootCamp will not fit the bill, since no matter what emulator you would use, you will still be running IE on a Mac, where you will not have the full experience of the millions of layers of bugs, flaws, and imperfections that are offered by the PC experience.

I know you are still stuck on your G3 EP and I hate to burst your bubble, BUT, a Mac (especially the one the OP is using -- latest MBP) IS A PC!

There is absolutely, 100%, NO DIFFERENCE (for the purposes of running IE to test for web rendering) between running Windows in BootCamp, VMWare Fusion, Parallels or VirtualBox on a Mac then running it on "the old kruftbox" (machine aesthetics aside). NONE!

Don't delude yourselves - IE ain't going away soon.

IE isn't going anywhere, but the pond is a lot more diluted than it used to be!!!!

http://www.ehmac.ca/members/g-mo-albums-stuff-picture156-web-browser-stats-sept-2009.jpg

Browser Statistics (http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp)

A lot of corporations are still on IE 6, they will not even go to 7 or 8.

Have you considered xenocode?

I spent a little time in a Web 2.0 house, and I used Xenocode to run my IE6 verification.

Browser Sandbox - Run any browser from the web (http://spoon.net/browsers/)

IE8 follows the standards (unless you tell it not to!).

LOL ... good one, almost spit my cola all over my monitor when I read your post. It follows _some_ standards, but it has some serious CSS issues (we don't even get into it's handling of DOM). It's the best IE yet as far as CSS goes, but it still has a long way to go.

LOL ... good one, almost spit my cola all over my monitor when I read your post. It follows _some_ standards, but it has some serious CSS issues (we don't even get into it's handling of DOM). It's the best IE yet as far as CSS goes, but it still has a long way to go.

Better than 7, or 6!!

Better than 7, or 6!!

Yes forward progress. They are starting to come around ... but as I said they still have a loooong way to go. I just tried the acid3 tests for fun:

Safari 4 gets 100/100
FireFox 3.5 gets 93/100.
IE8 gets 20/100
IE7 and IE6 .. I'm not positive, but I think they got 11 and 12 out of 100 (they are mostly unreadable)

I am a web designer...

Same here uPhone. I design for web standards compliance and then make any necessary changes to my code and style sheets to accommodate IE after everything has tested fine in Firefox, Safari and Opera.

I run VMWare Fusion with an install of Windows XP and test on IE 6 and 7. There really is no need to test any IE earlier than 6 as 5 is ancient now. With virtualization you are running Windows at the same time as OS X and there is no need for another computer or KVM and such. It is an elegant and fast solution. I HIGHLY recommend going this route.

Before the MacIntels came out I had a G5 and a high end PC, the PC primarily for testing purposes. Once the MacIntels came out I sold the G5 and the PC and bought a Mac Pro. You couldn't pay me to go back. Trust me, get virtualization software install your favourite flavour of Windows and do your testing that way, you will not be disappointed. :D

What is Netscape Navigator's market share these days?


I thought that netscape was the base for Mozilla Firefox - if that is the case, their market share is not that bad.

Try a search on Google for "Darwine and Internet Explorer". Darwine will permit to you use iE on your Mac. i have done this because one of the sites I use with some frequency only renders in IE.

CrossOver will do the same, without the messy trying to get DarWINE installed and working.

I thought that netscape was the base for Mozilla Firefox - if that is the case, their market share is not that bad.

netscape is based on the mozilla engine. Netscape had its own mail client, etc... was quite good back in the days. When Netscape communications was bought out by AOL, they did not keep netscape navigator, and left the market for other browsers.

I know you are still stuck on your G3 EP and I hate to burst your bubble, BUT, a Mac (especially the one the OP is using -- latest MBP) IS A PC!

WRONG - Macs use EFI, and thus, BIOS dependencies within IE simply can not be emulated.

If one wants to come down to semantics, no machine made in the last 20 years is a PC, since a PC refers to specifically the IBM PC, which had a 8088 processor, 5 backplane slots, and a cassette interface.

There is absolutely, 100%, NO DIFFERENCE (for the purposes of running IE to test for web rendering) between running Windows in BootCamp, VMWare Fusion, Parallels or VirtualBox on a Mac then running it on "the old kruftbox" (machine aesthetics aside). NONE!

Again - WRONG - Macs use EFI, while software like IE is entirely written for BIOS based machines - and Macs do not use or support BIOS at all. Thus, lots of problems that BIOS brings into play simply do not exist on the Mac, seeing that the Mac has never, ever had BIOS.

Lots of problems that PC users face on an actual PC grade machine will simply not occur on a Mac - since a Mac is not a PC because a Mac does not have BIOS, but only emulates it with BootCamp or a Virtualizer. The emulation is imperfect because the emulation is free of bugs, unlike BIOS, which is reliant upon bugs.

Again - WRONG - Macs use EFI, while software like IE is entirely written for BIOS based machines - and Macs do not use or support BIOS at all. Thus, lots of problems that BIOS brings into play simply do not exist on the Mac, seeing that the Mac has never, ever had BIOS.

Lots of problems that PC users face on an actual PC grade machine will simply not occur on a Mac - since a Mac is not a PC because a Mac does not have BIOS, but only emulates it with BootCamp or a Virtualizer. The emulation is imperfect because the emulation is free of bugs, unlike BIOS, which is reliant upon bugs.

Hey genius... Read again!

There is absolutely, 100%, NO DIFFERENCE (for the purposes of running IE to test for web rendering)

I thought that netscape was the base for Mozilla Firefox - if that is the case, their market share is not that bad.
Mozilla was a development of a new rendering engine for Netscape, to replace the old Mosaic based engine that had been added on to for so many years. Corporate shenanigans left Netscape out to rot, in a way, as they started pushing Mozilla - which became the basis of a new browser, FireFox; and a new mail reader, Thunderbird. Of course, there was a fork that brought out a Mozilla based Netscape, which was a decent product, but didn't have the add-on capability of FireFox.

The numbers tend to be skewed because Micro$loth counts every version of Windoze sold as being an Interglitch Exploder user - whether or not that user runs it or not. Many people, in the wild, are running FireFox simply because of the massive advantages, not to mention that IE is now entirely proprietary and Windoze only.

Quite a number of people use multiple browsers - in fact, I know of few that use a single browser, since no single browser is able to do all of the tasks. Old Netscape is still used in many corporate environments. My girlfriend is absolutely required to run Netscape as part of corporate policy, and the use of another browser is grounds for disciplinary actions, suspension, and possibly the loss of her job.

I do not think one browser should even have the whole market - things are always better when there is competition and many players in the market because it gives users freedom of choice. Thus, for me, FireFox is entirely adequate for many tasks, but unsuited for my research, where Safari is superior because it doesn't have tabbed browsing and is faster to render pages. Now sure, one could go in and toggle tabbed browsing on and off, indefinitely - but having two or more separate browsers is more convenient, and it is easier to have customized sets of bookmarks within each browser, so research stuff doesn't get mixed up with other stuff.

I also view large percentages on the part of IE to be bogus, since most people that use IE simply use it because they either don't know or are afraid of using a real browser, or simply do not care if web pages render correctly because of apathy towards such things. Other places, like the Library, stiff people with IE only policies. I think if one polled the people that actually pound the web for things, you would find the vast majority are using alternate browsers because they can not afford the bad rendering, bugs, crashes, etc. of IE; or simply because as researchers, they want to use a browser on their home machine that is similar to their Linux box back at the office or lab.

There is absolutely, 100%, NO DIFFERENCE (for the purposes of running IE to test for web rendering)

I am going to make an addendum to this matter...

Over the last 3 years I have done close to 1800 hours of compliance testing for cross-browser compatibility and I have used IE on a MacBook, an iMac and a MacBook Pro using BootCamp and multiple virtualization solutions, using various Windows versions as well as various Windows versions running on traditional "PC" hardware (laptops, desktops, etc...)... in all that time I have NEVER seen a situation where the same version of IE does (or doesn't) display an issue on one platform and not on another... IE f*cks up consistently!

I spoke with the tech head at my school today and he let me know that board wide, the board has chosen to remove all browsers from EVERY image on EVERY computer (we used to have FireFox and Google Chrome on all images). They have for some crazy reason decided to only use Internet Explorer, which by the way, is not even the newest version.

Considering that the majority of computers board wide, other than library computers, are used for either Communication Technology classes (that essentially teach web design) or computer coding classes, I find it stupid that they would remove all other browsers for an old version of IE.

By the way, if it's not clear.... I'm not at all trying to "endorse" IE, I'm just saying that a LARGE percentage of people use IE (for whatever reason, of which quite frankly I don't care) and I need to account for this. To be quite honest for regular browsing, I don't care which browser I'm using. But when it comes down to producing something for someone's business, I have to be sure that EVERY client worldwide can view EVERY page.

I see Evan has found this thread .... Evan buddy, hate to break it to you, but IE has absolutely NO dependancy on BIOS whatsoever, nor does just about any userspace application (unless it reads/writes to the BIOS directly). Where DO you come up with this stuff?

I agree with screature that virtualization is the way to go for testing. I do much the same, test IE6, IE7 and IE8 (as well as FF and Opera and Chrome) in VM's. Screature ... if you're not testing IE8 yet you should ;) It's a radically different beast than IE7 was for CSS and has it's whole own set of issues -- lots of IE7 happy things are broken in IE8 ... Thank goodness for 8 core macs with oodles of ram and hard drive space and the ability to run multiple VM's at once ... due to Microsloth's inability to have multiple versions of IE installed at once you have to maintain multiple OS VM's in order to test on those 3.

I see Evan has found this thread .... Evan buddy, hate to break it to you, but IE has absolutely NO dependancy on BIOS whatsoever, nor does just about any userspace application (unless it reads/writes to the BIOS directly). Where DO you come up with this stuff?


:lmao::lmao:

his posts are amazing..

Hey! I randomly think this thread could use a little artwork:

http://idisk.mac.com/chasm/Public/oscar_ppc-OS9.gif

Nothing to do with anything here, just a nice picture. And admit it, you've got that "Oh, I love trash" song stuck in your head now.

Hey! I randomly think this thread could use a little artwork:

http://idisk.mac.com/chasm/Public/oscar_ppc-OS9.gif

Nothing to do with anything here, just a nice picture. And admit it, you've got that "Oh, I love trash" song stuck in your head now.

Thanks!! lol

I see Evan has found this thread .... Evan buddy, hate to break it to you, but IE has absolutely NO dependancy on BIOS whatsoever, nor does just about any userspace application (unless it reads/writes to the BIOS directly). Where DO you come up with this stuff?

I agree with screature that virtualization is the way to go for testing. I do much the same, test IE6, IE7 and IE8 (as well as FF and Opera and Chrome) in VM's. Screature ... if you're not testing IE8 yet you should ;) It's a radically different beast than IE7 was for CSS and has it's whole own set of issues -- lots of IE7 happy things are broken in IE8 ... Thank goodness for 8 core macs with oodles of ram and hard drive space and the ability to run multiple VM's at once ... due to Microsloth's inability to have multiple versions of IE installed at once you have to maintain multiple OS VM's in order to test on those 3.

Thanks mg, I didn't realize IE 8 was out of beta. Where have I been? :rolleyes:

BTW you can install a standalone version of IE 7in Windows and run it simultaneously with IE 6. This is what I do. Works great, so no need for multiple VMs running at the same time. I just found a standalone of IE8. You can get it here (http://www.webisee.com/2009/03/20/download-ie8-standalone-installer/)

Edit: This link is not to a standalone version of IE * it is just a Stand alone installer. It will overwrite your previous version of IE. Do not use it!! You will only end up having to uninstall it. However the aforementioned Stand Alone version of IE 7 that I installed does not do this.

Nice Chasm, I was wondering who ended up with all of the old PowerPC's! Hehehe

uPhone, Crossover would be the easiest solution to running IE6 and IE7 but unfortunately IE8 is "known not to work" in Crossover, as of yet.

As for IE's market share, I don't think the numbers people find on this statistic are too accurate as they are based on how many computers were sold with IE, or Safari on them, or how many times Firefox was downloaded. I seriously doubt there are that many people out there that didn't immediately dispose of IE from their computer and replace it with one of the smarter alternatives. Taking this into account would actually mean subtracting a large percentage of Firefox's, and Safari's, market share directly from IE's market share: after doing this the numbers would be a bit more accurate I think.

As a web development student I can tell you that almost everyone I've seen getting into the industry is developing for Firefox or Safari and telling owners of IE to UPGRADE to one of the better alternatives.

IE NEEDS TO BE STOPPED!:mad: Imagine how easy our lives WILL BE (as designers and developers of web sites) WHEN IE is finally cast out as the obsolete dinosaur it truly is.:lmao: It's up to us to stop regular internet users from holding our industry back by using IE: which, is now so far behind industry standards at this point, that all it does is make things hard for everybody, including the clients when they end up paying more for all of the extra messing around we do fixing IE bugs. (I'd call that a "Cost Plus" if it was not in the contract)

Imagine developing web pages for a fully standardized browser industry... *DROOLS*
I can't wait!:D

And I bet they're learning to design web pages with Front Page, too! What a nightmare.

The fact that your job depends on making web pages compatible with IE is exactly why I suggested getting a cheap PC way back before this thread degenerated into insanity. Sure, you shouldn't HAVE to do it, as you replied, but if your livelihood depends on making web pages that are compatible with out dated versions of IE, then use the real thing to test it. (Hell, steal a PC from the school, tell 'em you need to defrag the hard drive and clean the registry...)

I find that repeatedly switching back and forth between a virtual Windows machine and OS X on my Mac is really annoying, whereas turning my chair to a PC running IE on Windows and hitting the reload button is less so. And then I look at the errors and crappy formatting, turn back to the Mac, and laugh and laugh and laugh.

I spoke with the tech head at my school today and he let me know that board wide, the board has chosen to remove all browsers from EVERY image on EVERY computer (we used to have FireFox and Google Chrome on all images). They have for some crazy reason decided to only use Internet Explorer, which by the way, is not even the newest version.

Considering that the majority of computers board wide, other than library computers, are used for either Communication Technology classes (that essentially teach web design) or computer coding classes, I find it stupid that they would remove all other browsers for an old version of IE.

By the way, if it's not clear.... I'm not at all trying to "endorse" IE, I'm just saying that a LARGE percentage of people use IE (for whatever reason, of which quite frankly I don't care) and I need to account for this. To be quite honest for regular browsing, I don't care which browser I'm using. But when it comes down to producing something for someone's business, I have to be sure that EVERY client worldwide can view EVERY page.

You might thank me later. I swear by this site. It takes screenshots of any site that you tell it to look up and produces screenshots. Supports almost every browser imaginable.

Check Browser Compatibility, Cross Platform Browser Test - Browsershots (http://browsershots.org/)

Thank you ALL for your help!

By the way,

My mom is one of the top real estate agents in the province (you know, if any of you are looking to buy or sell :rolleyes:) and she is crazy-paranoid about getting viruses on her PC. She loves the idea of how a Mac gets virtually no viruses. BUT, as a realtor, she MUST have access to the TMLS (Toronto Multiple Listing Service) which is notorious for ONLY supporting INTERNET EXPLORER 6! They do not support 7, or 8, and do not support FireFox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, ANYTHING!

Because she cannot view TMLS on a Mac (which, for a real estate agent, is like a pizza maker without an oven) then she simply cannot get a Mac, no question. I have done some googling and found one post with the exact same problem (a realtor who has a mac) and whoever answered him gave him an article published by TMLS with instructions of drivers (or some type of plugin) to make it work. Those links, though, are broken.

Does anyone have any suggestions for that?

BTW you can install a standalone version of IE 7in Windows and run it simultaneously with IE 6. This is what I do. Works great, so no need for multiple VMs running at the same time. I just found a standalone of IE8. You can get it here (http://www.webisee.com/2009/03/20/download-ie8-standalone-installer/)

No quite. This solution gives you the "shell" of various versions of IE but it uses the most recently installed rendering engine... (Check Help -> About Internet Explorer and the version!)

I have not read the entire thread (lots of replies), but I'm replying anyway. Sorry if this is repeat info.

As a programmer of apps with web UIs, I have the same problem as you. The sad fact is, a web app is simply broken if it does not work on IE6.

The solution, buy a copy of Windows XP (get an OEM edition from a place that sells PC parts) and buy VMWare. Now you can place IE on your Dock and launch it anytime you need to (in the virtualized Windows environment). Not only that, but theoretically you could have a VMWare image for XP+IE6, XP+IE7, Vista+IE6, Vista+IE7, or whatever you need.

Good luck!

box

Crossover for Mac would solve her problem, google it!

Thank you ALL for your help!

By the way,

My mom is one of the top real estate agents in the province (you know, if any of you are looking to buy or sell :rolleyes:) and she is crazy-paranoid about getting viruses on her PC. She loves the idea of how a Mac gets virtually no viruses. BUT, as a realtor, she MUST have access to the TMLS (Toronto Multiple Listing Service) which is notorious for ONLY supporting INTERNET EXPLORER 6! They do not support 7, or 8, and do not support FireFox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, ANYTHING!

Because she cannot view TMLS on a Mac (which, for a real estate agent, is like a pizza maker without an oven) then she simply cannot get a Mac, no question. I have done some googling and found one post with the exact same problem (a realtor who has a mac) and whoever answered him gave him an article published by TMLS with instructions of drivers (or some type of plugin) to make it work. Those links, though, are broken.

Does anyone have any suggestions for that?

+1 DDKD726, Crossover has no problem running IE 6 (or IE 7 for that matter) complete with the Active-X crapola that makes MLS services like TMLS work.

And of course Macs can run Windows via Boot Camp, Parallels, VMWare, et al but only Crossover's method precludes the viruses. You really should look into it, free demo et al.

No quite. This solution gives you the "shell" of various versions of IE but it uses the most recently installed rendering engine... (Check Help -> About Internet Explorer and the version!)

No it renders according the the version of IE that it is. I have used this method for a couple of years so I know what I am talking about. IE 6 renders as IE 6 and IE 7 renders as IE 7. The "hacks"that I have to write into CSS to render properly for the different versions prove this out time and again, so maybe you have a situation that does otherwise, but mine does what it is supposed to.

I installed the Stand Alone version of IE 7 after IE 6 was already on Windows and here is a screen capture of the Check Help -> About Internet Explorer and the version window from IE 6.

So not quite back at ya! ;)

10578

No quite. This solution gives you the "shell" of various versions of IE but it uses the most recently installed rendering engine... (Check Help -> About Internet Explorer and the version!)

G-Mo, you are in fact correct about the so called "Stand Alone" for IE 8 that I found just recently.

It is not a Stand Alone version of IE 8 only a Stand Alone installer, It does do as you said and overwrites your previous version of IE. However, the Stand Alone version of IE 7 that I had previously installed, as I demonstrated above, does not do this.

...Thank goodness for 8 core macs with oodles of ram and hard drive space and the ability to run multiple VM's at once ... due to Microsloth's inability to have multiple versions of IE installed at once you have to maintain multiple OS VM's in order to test on those 3.

Hey mg upon further research I have found what may be the best way to test web sites on the various flavours of IE (6 through 8). It is called Browser Sandbox (http://spoon.net/browsers/) from the folks at Xenocode.

The Xenocode Browser Sandbox allows all popular Windows browsers to be run simultaneously, directly from the web. Web designers, system administrators, and other users can now evaluate Internet Explorer 8, 7, and 6, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera, and Google Chrome directly from the web in a risk-free manner. Unlike traditional software applications, Xenocode WebApps do not require any software to be installed and allow multiple application versions to run side-by-side on any version of Windows.

The way it works is you launch IE 7 or 8 (doesn't seem to work from IE 6) from your Windows virtual installation, go the the Spoon web site (Xenocode's new identity - link above) and then once there you are presented with the following page:

10580

The first time you visit the site there is a little link to install the Saandbox plugin. You install it and then you can click on any of the IE (or other browser) start buttons (it takes a little time for the first start up for buffering, but after that each subsequent startup is very fast.) The selected browser then opens up in a new window and you are ready for testing. It is that simple aside from the fact that you should bookmark (add to favourites in Windows speak) the Spoon web site for easy access. Do this for each IE you wish to test and no more multiple visualization installs and you don't even install the browser on your system, it runs on the web.

I have tested it out fairly thoroughly it it seems to work wonderfully well. Neat thing, your favourites are recognized across all flavours of IE, so you only have to add them once.

I think this is pretty cool!

I used it to test my recently developed sites in IE8 and there were no issues with my CSS code. Just lucky I guess. :D

Hey mg upon further research I have found what may be the best way to test web sites on the various flavours of IE (6 through 8). It is called Browser Sandbox (http://spoon.net/browsers/) from the folks at Xenocode.



The way it works is you launch IE 7 or 8 (doesn't seem to work from IE 6) from your Windows virtual installation, go the the Spoon web site (Xenocode's new identity - link above) and then once there you are presented with the following page:

10580

The first time you visit the site there is a little link to install the Saandbox plugin. You install it and then you can click on any of the IE (or other browser) start buttons (it takes a little time for the first start up for buffering, but after that each subsequent startup is very fast.) The selected browser then opens up in a new window and you are ready for testing. It is that simple aside from the fact that you should bookmark (add to favourites in Windows speak) the Spoon web site for easy access. Do this for each IE you wish to test and no more multiple visualization installs and you don't even install the browser on your system, it runs on the web.

I have tested it out fairly thoroughly it it seems to work wonderfully well. Neat thing, your favourite are recognized across all flavours of IE, so you only have to add them once.

I think this is pretty cool!

I used it to test my recently developed sites in IE8 and there were no issues with my CSS code. Just lucky I guess. :D


Cool idea, but, "This service is unavailable on your device"

Cool idea, but, "This service is unavailable on your device"


No you can't run it from OSX as I said you have to be running a version of IE, so if you are on a Mac you have to be running IE either through a virtualized or BootCamp Installation of Windows.