From today you can check the browser compatibility of any part of your web application within seconds using Litmus.
How does it work? The secret is our new Litmus bookmarklet - a single button you add to your local browser that lets you test inside your web applications (and other sites that need a login).
It's easier to understand when you see it in action. I've recorded a screencast demonstrating how to use it below. It's eerily simple.
You can install the bookmarklet from within your Litmus account, on the new 'Extras' tab. It's available to all our customers. If you're not already a customer you can try Litmus for free, including the new bookmarklet feature.
In the interests of full disclosure I should explain how we're doing this behind the scenes. The bookmarklet copies your session cookie for the site you're testing, therefore allowing our Litmus browsers to mimic being logged in to your website. Your session information is stored securely on our servers - no-one else can access it. The whole thing works seamlessly.
As always, we'd love to hear your feedback on this new feature!
Comments
Excellent!
Great Job Litmus team!
Posted by Mike Bishop on August 15, 2008 5:23 PM
That really *is* eerily simple. Nice.
Posted by Ben Chestnut on August 15, 2008 6:52 PM
Wow! That's super nice. Good work on that feature!
Posted by Jim Bob Pipes on August 15, 2008 9:46 PM
What a cool feature! Thanks :)
Not sure if you are thinking about including this feature but when you test in Safari Mac and Safari PC the links under the Overview button do not tell you whether it is the Mac/PC version you are viewing... It'd be really awesome/useful if it did (or am I being blind and completely missing something?)
Thanks again.
Posted by Jenna on August 16, 2008 1:09 PM
Thanks for the kind words everyone - really glad you like it!
Jenna - that's an excellent point. All our Safari tests are done in the Mac version of Safari in fact. However, we should definitely list the operating system as well on the overview screen, so that it's clearer. I'll open a ticket to get that changed.
Posted by Paul Farnell on August 16, 2008 1:49 PM
Hmmm, interesting. Was this created in response to BrowserCam's Gomez WebInsight tool? It does practically the same thing but instead of a bookmarklet, they created a Firefox Extension instead. Check it out here.
I've even seen a demo presentation on it here
Posted by MarkyAndy on August 27, 2008 4:23 AM
MarkyAndy: This is something we'd planned to release since July last year, but it kept getting delayed. Browsercam's Gomez WebInsight tool achieves almost the same thing, but it looks like they've taken a different approach to the problem. Interesting, thanks. Out of interest - would you personally prefer to use a Firefox extension over a bookmarklet?
Posted by Paul Farnell on August 27, 2008 2:55 PM