Posted by Roy Schestowitz on 08/26/05 14:17

__/ On Friday 26 August 2005 11:43, [Els] wrote : \__

> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>
>>>> What is _your_ reason, Els? Firebird for testing purposes?
>>>
>>> More than one reason, but indeed, testing is one of them.
>>> Another one: I still find it easy to have several browsers (with
>>> different icons) open at the same time for different purposes.
>>>
>>> Alt-tab between for instance Firefox and Firebird is quicker than
>>> Ctrl-tab-tab-tab-tab between two tabs in Firefox. I usually have about
>>> 10 tabs open in Firefox, anywhere between 6 and 20 in Opera, and only
>>> a couple in Firebird en sometimes even IE is open in one or two
>>> windows.
>>
>> You can improve that ALT+TAB (+TAB^n).
>>
>> http://schestowitz.com/Weblog/archives/2004/11/26/test/
>
> Well, I knew of that possibility already. (I was one of the technical
> reviewers for "Firefox and Thunderbird Garage")


I am sincerely impressed, yet by no means surprised.


> But I don't like it much, as I have then to count which number the
> wanted tab has. After having more than 6 tabs open, this is too much
> hassle. I prefer Opera's method in that: ctrl-tab will switch between
> the last two openened, regardsless of how many tabs are physically
> between them.


I guess it is all a matter of habit. I think I would have spent a lot of
'brain RAM' keeping track of which tab I opened last. I then risk getting
that information overload threshold, which distracts me. In practice, I
only navigate using the digits for tabs 1 to 3, maybe 4. That's where I
usually have fundamental stuff like my portal and a CMS.


>> That was in November last year. I use it all the time. It becomes very
>> natural -- mentally matching screen positions to a number.
>
> It would work if they remained in the same position all day, yes.


CTRL+Home gets me to my portal where everything remains in the same position
-- all 300 or so links that are logically categorised. I can't use the
Internet without my portal anymore. When my site is down, I must use a
local copy of it.


>> If you test pages as you edit, you might also wish to run auto-refresh.
>
> I've thought of that, but I like to see what is changed as I refresh,
> and it's only one keyboard press anyway.


I agree.


>>> Outlook Express...
>>
>> You, madam, made me spill my Coke.
>
> That should have been rum&coke really - and thanks for reminding me, I
> need to buy some coke today to go with my rum :-)


See comment that begs to be made... yet to be articulated below...


>> I hope you're satisfied.
>
> Yes I am, thank you for asking :-)
> And I didn't even do it on purpose - I really use OE for mail.


People should spend money on rum, not expensive operating systems and
commercial software.


>> *smile* just sarcasm... I like that particular joke... please don't
>> misinterpret it.
>
> Well, I did misinterpret it: I really thought I had you spill your
> coke... you shouldn't have spoiled it by saying it was a joke ;-)


I was fairly sure it would be offensive. Text is too ambiguous -- no tone of
voice.


>> I used OE myself until last year.
>
> Why did you ditch it? Thunderbird? I've done that for a short while,
> but didn't like it.


Until I moved to Thunderbird, I had to manually export all my monthly
archives on the 1st of each month. I chose to export it to HTML using a
Ruby script. Having your mail locked in a proprietary format is risky.
Thunderbird with all the enhancements gives me more than Outlook (not
Express) has ever offered me. Oh, and it's free...


>>> ...links open in Firebird, Dialog links open in Opera.
>>> Firefox is my main work-browser. IE is only used when I really want to
>>> see something in Flash, and for testing my own work.
>>>
>>> The rest of my browsers are really only used when a site is about
>>> finished, and I need to check for weird glitches and bugs.
>>
>> Sounds more or less like what I do myself. It is hard to design and test
>> sites with just one browser these days. O/S likewise and it will get
>> worse as Windows is losing its share and diversity is better recognised.
>
> Yup, I got a SuSE box to help me out, and am on the lookout for a
> secondhand Mac.


Luckily I have one at work. It is only used as an E-mail client at the
moment, but it's also good for testing pages.

Good luck with SuSE. I tried many distros, but SuSE (which I use most of the
time) is king.


>> css-discuss is full of (or plagued with) these "site check please" and
>> "Mac IE5 test"...
>
> I remember the days when I had to ask someone else to check in
> Netscape - I was on a Win95 box with 8MB RAM, and no room for more
> than IE5.5. Only 2.5 years ago - time flies... ;-)


It does. I miss the older days of computing.

Roy

--
Roy S. Schestowitz "ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI"
http://Schestowitz.com

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