There are so many possible combinations of client machine 
configurations that it is mind boggling. I just wrote down some of the 
factors that could go to make up the combinations.. 


I am firstly interested in the 'resolution' question. It seems to me that 
if I set my machine's display settings to some high resolution like 
1280x1024 , display the test page, then progressively reduce the 
resolution (without rebooting), then I don't get a 'fair representation' 
of what the page will look like at the lower resolutions - and besides, 
the horizontal scroll bars go missing. 

But if I start out at a low resolution, and increase it progressively, 
without rebooting, it seems like I do get a 'fair' representation of what 
the page will look like at higher resolutions. 

Since I don't want to be rebooting all the time, I'd like to know if 
people think that starting at low resolution and working up is a 
'foolproof' way of testing at multiple resolutions.


Thanks

John

---------------------------------------
possible Combinations of

resolution :
  640x480
  800x600
  1024x768
  1280x1024
  other higher resolutions with high end graphics cards
  544x372 (web TV; no horizontal scrolling allowed)

( http://www.anybrowser.com/ScreenSizeTest.html    
is somewhat handy in that it will open a fixed sized window
in some of the standard sizes, so you can review your site in that 
size, but is probably not a substitute for actually setting the monitor 
resolution.)

color depth :
  256 colors
  16 bit color
  24 bit color
  32 bit color
  
    
font settings on user machine:
  small fonts
  large fonts
  other/custom font size
    
physical screen size:
  should not matter
  
OS & browser:

The "full list" is something like

Win MS IE 6.0
Win MS IE 5.5
Win MS IE 5.0
Win MS IE 4.0
Win MS IE 3.0
Win MS IE 2.0
Mac MS IE 5.0
Mac MS IE 4.0
Mac MS IE 3.0
Mac MS IE 2.0
UNIX MS IE 4.01

Win NN 6 
Win NN 4.7/4.5
Win NN 4 
Win NN 3.0
Win NN 2.0
Mac NN 4.7/4.5
Mac NN 4.06
Mac NN 3.0
Mac NN 2.0
UNIX NN 4.06
UNIX NN 3.0
UNIX NN 2.0
OS/2 NN 2.02
Win Opera 4.02
Mac Mosaic 3.07
Win Mosaic 3.0
Win AOL 3.0
Mac AOL 2.7
Win AOL 1.0
Mac AOL 1.0
Win Lynx
UNIX Lynx
OS/2 Lynx
WebTV MS WebTV 

Webreview.com gives the market shares as : 
MS IE 5.x 24.9% 
MS IE 4.x 44.7% 
MS IE 3.x  3.6% 
NN 4.x    22.0% 
NN 3.x     2.3%
MS Web TV  1.4% 
Other      1.1%
         ------
         100.0%

but this is not broken down by OS (Win32 vs Mac)         

 
A reasonable subset for testing would appear to be:
 ***Internet Explorer
Version 4.0 Windows 
Version 5.0 Windows 
Version 5.5 Windows 
Version 6.0 Windows 
Version 4.0 Macintosh 
Version 4.5 Macintosh 
Version 5.0 Macintosh 

 ***Netscape Navigator
Version 4.x Windows 
Version 4.x Macintosh 
Version 6.0 Windows 
Version 6.0 Macintosh 

Opera
Opera 4.02  Windows 
Opera 5.0   Macintosh ?

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