InfoQ - Expression Web SuperPreview allows developers to render web pages in different browsers simultaneously to detect layout issues. SuperPreview will be available as a standalone version as well as integrated into Expression Web. The standalone version will be made available for free and a trial version is available for download today, named Expression Web SuperPreview for Windows Internet Explorer.
About the same time as this new product was made available, Microsoft published an article describing the product and the motivation for creating it:
Today’s browser wars make the late 90’s look like a minor skirmish. In addition to Firefox and IE, we’ve got multi-platform versions of Safari, Opera, Chrome, and a wealth of mobile phone browsers. In addition, there are multiple versions of all these browsers, many of which have different rendering idiosyncrasies (I’m talkin’ about you, IE6/7/8).
They continue by listing common problems web developers have today:
Most browsers can’t have multiple versions installed side-by-side. The newest version replaces older versions. So, you can’t have IE6 and IE7 on the same machine (unless you’re using virtual machines or unstable registry hacks).
Many browsers support both Mac and Windows. Devs want to test in (at least) Mac Safari, which doesn’t render the same as Safari on Windows.
The ergonomics of browser testing is awkward. Many devs load their site on a staging server and have a battery of machines running different browsers. They have to manually load a page in each machine and then walk to each individual machine to compare the different monitors.
Read More
