Visual Studio 2012 is a very good tool to use when creating websites, especially ones that use Microsoft’s coding languages such as C#. When testing these websites it’s almost essential that testing is done in all browsers that you want to guarantee as usable with that site. From experience I’m sure you know that although browsers do follow the same standards there are many times that things look different, or even break.
One of the least found problems now of course is the dreaded Internet Explorer 6 issue where developers literally had to add CSS code and code behind the pages to know when this browser was being used and to code around the known issues. As developers we can’t just assume that a browser such as this is still not being used though we have to do the very opposite and still know that somewhere out there somebody is using a browser that could break all your hard worked on design, and the person to be to blame in the users eyes is of course you.
Browsing Options When Debugging Websites in Visual Studio 2012
The ability to select which browser you can debug with is a nice touch in Visual Studio, but in the new version it’s been extended to add some very useful functionality. One of the first things you’ll notice on the browser options is that you can now select “Browse With”. If you click on this you will find that you can select multiple browsers instead of just one. Selecting multiple browsers then clicking on browse will make the browsers open and run the website. Developers will I’m sure like this option as it saves from having to select a browser then re-test again to select another.
Another nice addition is that you can “Add” another browser, but actually add one that already exists in the list. Why would you do this? The answer is that you can add parameters then give this browser option a name, for example “Dev Profile” with the browser set in a development mode. This again is very useful when debugging as it allows you to stop add ins on that version of the browser, and add other functionality that you may need when testing. When set this means that it will now be in your list of selectable browsers (with the name you have set for it).
When providing tools like Visual Studio Microsoft aim to give developers all the tools they need to provide the best software you can provide. To do this it has to be debugged and tested in all possible scenarios, or ones that you can think of. Bugs will always exist in code and sometimes they survive into the website/application going live (just ask any big company like Microsoft about that problem) but as developers we can only strive to make our code work as bug free as possible.
