Because you can't control which browsers or operating systems visitors will use to view your site, it is important to test your site in different browsers. Although you can do some of this on your computer by installing several browsers and running a local testing server, it can be a challenge to review all possible combinations of browsers and operating systems. For a detailed overview about the purposes of a testing server, see the Dreamweaver Developer Center article written by David Powers, Setting up a local testing server in Dreamweaver CS6 at www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/setup_testing_server.html.
Adobe BrowserLab is an online service that lets you test your website pages in a variety of web browsers and operating systems. For example, the following combinations of browsers and operating systems can produce slight differences in how your site appears:
• Google Chrome 3.0 - Windows XP
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 - Windows XP
• Apple Safari 4.0 - Mac OS X
• Mozilla Firefox 3.0 - Mac OS X
The service works by taking screenshots of your web pages in different browsers and then displaying them on the BrowserLab page. BrowserLab is integrated with Dreamweaver CS6. You can test your pages from within Dreamweaver without publishing your pages to a server.
Using BrowserLab in Dreamweaver
BrowserLab lets you preview local web content from within Dreamweaver, without requiring you to post it to a publicly-accessible server first. You can preview files from your local Dreamweaver site.
1. Select View > Design.
2. Choose Window > Extensions > Adobe BrowserLab.
3. In the Adobe BrowserLab panel, choose Local/Network from the pop-up menu.
