The New Face of Browser Testing

2006 August 25 by Josh

Windows XP in OS X Server in VNC in OS X After we unloaded our Dell last week, we were without a Windows machine to run browser tests on for a couple days. That is until the Mac mini arrived, complete with a dual-core Intel processor and a couple gigs of RAM. And OS X Server.

We added a rather large LaCie drive to the machine (you know, the mini-stackable kind), partitioned up the internal drive (to keep OS X one one side and OS X Server on the other), and we left ample room on a third partition to store virtual machine images.

This is today's era of browser testing. Let me pause a brief moment to thank early adopters like DS who are kind enough to write up their experiences and thus save the rest of us some headache. That said, the days of needing a standalone Windows box to test your code in IE are gone, along with the sluggish response of VirtualPC.

The new mini will serve primarily as an in-house file and dev server, but the added benefit of running Parallels with a Windows XP install (or two) saves us expense, desk space, and our better design sense as we no longer have to gripe about the Dell messing up the aesthetic of the office. It also means that we get to use our favorite Mac keyboard in Windows as opposed to the chunky-monkey that came with the Dell.

We also did some experimenting with running Windows via Parallels via OS X Server on the mini via my PowerBook with Chicken of the VNC. Actually I even installed Parallels and Windows on the mini from my PowerBook with VNC. The idea of course would be that in the end, we could all browser-test from our one desks using a single license of Windows running on the server.

Unfortunately this works better in theory than in reality. Due to the differences in mouse acceleration between Mac and Windows, navigating the Windows virtual machine becomes painful over VNC. Parallels compensates for this on a local machine, but running VNC adds another desktop layer which makes things somewhat wonky. It would probably work great to use VNC to take over a Bootcamp install of Windows, but we'd rather not have to shut down OS X on the machine.

I'm going to continue to play with the mouse acceleration settings on the Windows install, and perhaps we can get it close, but for now it's just easier to run Parallels locally. Either way, this is a lot of fun. We've also posted some larger screenshots of the experience in case you're interested.

David Zülke says

Why don't you use Remote Desktop Connection to connect to the running Windows? The best thing is that you can configure the Windows to use LDAP authentication from the OS X server, then set the RDC client to remember your credentials. All you do then is start it, and connect - everyone will have his/her own dedicated Windows "instance", meaning that multiple people can connect to and use Windows at the same time.

Josh Williams says

David -- Good call... We'll have to give that a try. That may just be the ticket we need to punch. Thanks.

Craig Hockenberry says

Welcome to the club, Josh! We've been using Parallels since the VERY early betas (and QEMU before that!)

These tools were both very important in the design & testing of both the Iconfactory and Stockicons.com. Running multiple instances let us do checks against both IE6 and IE7.

Forget about VNC and use Remote Desktop 3. This will let you set Parallels up on OS X server and easily connect to the Mac desktop which is running Parallels. Best of both worlds.

Also, by running the setup on Mac OS X Server, you can start the VPN server and allow remote clients to connect to the machine. Of course, you'll have to be careful of security configurations, but it's VERY handy to share a browser window with people working in remote offices.

-ch

David Zülke says

Note that I added the blah blah about LDAP because I assumed you're already using that as the office for user auth etc. If not, it would still be a good idea to set up an account for each of you guys, because that way several people can be logged in at the same time (and I'm pretty sure Remote Desktop also allows multiple concurrent connections).

Josh Williams says

Craig - We thought about looking at ARD, but do you have to have a separate license for each computer that would be accessing the host computer running Parallels?

Craig Hockenberry says

Apple's licensing isn't very clear about this use of ARD.

They say it's licensed for one person -> 10 machines. But it also works fine the other way around: 10 people -> 1 machine. Just think of the "administrator" as the one on the shared machine.

Josh Williams says

Thanks Craig. That's certainly what I was curious about. We'll definitely give that a try, even if Apple is a bit gray there.

Dave says

What would be nice is when Leopard comes out you can have the parallel maximised on one space?

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