Acid2
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Acid2 is a test case designed by the Web Standards Project to identify web page rendering flaws in browsers and authoring tools. It is an updated edition of the original Acid test of 1997.
Acid2 employs certain features of HTML and, more prominently, CSS. The purpose of employing such features is to highlight the problems with browsers that do not display it correctly. The Acid2 test should render correctly on any browser that follows the W3C HTML and CSS 2.0 specifications. Any browsers which do not correctly and completely support all of the features which Acid2 takes advantage of will not render the page correctly.
If rendered correctly, Acid2 will appear as a smiley face in the user's browser, with the nose turning blue when moused over. At the time of the test's release, no browsers could render Acid2 correctly but now at least five released applications pass the test by rendering it correctly:
- Safari, in Mac OS X v10.4.3, becoming the first browser to do so.
- Prince, an XML-to-PDF converter developed by YesLogic.
- Opera v. 9, March of 2006.
- Konqueror, the KDE project's browser. Since Safari's rendering engine is a fork of Konqueror's rendering engine, some of Apple's enhancements were adapted.
- iCab.
- Shiira, a browser for Mac OSX
The programmers of Mozilla have been making gradual efforts to have their browsers pass the Acid2 test, but it is unclear when this will take place. The delay is due to fundamental architecture work that has to be done to the Gecko rendering engine to support the changes that Acid2 requires. It's unlikely that an end-user release that supports Acid2 will appear before 2007.
Although Internet Explorer has also been moving towards better CSS compliance, its author, Microsoft, has publicly stated that Acid2 is not one of their primary focuses, and that the upcoming release Internet Explorer 7 will not pass the test.
The Web Standards Project has created a special version of Acid2 test, because Data URLs used in the original test were never formally standardized.
Timeline of successful browsers
The Acid2 test was officially announced on April 13, 2005. The following is a list of releases noting significant builds of applications that passed the test.Please note that smiley face will render incorrectly if you scroll the page or change the font or window sizes. This is expected behavior and does not mean that browser hasn't passed the test.
| Date | Browser | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 27, 2005 | Safari | non-public build | |
| May 18, 2005 | iCab | non-public build | |
| May 20, 2005 | iCab | build public to members only | |
| June 4, 2005 | Konqueror | non-public build | |
| June 6, 2005 | iCab | public build | |
| October 31, 2005 | Safari | official release | Version 2.02, available with Mac OS X 10.4.3. First official browser to pass test. |
| November 29, 2005 | Konqueror | official release | Available with KDE 3.5. First Linux-based browser to pass virtually all of the test. |
| December 7, 2005 | Prince | official release | Version 5.1, first non-web browser to pass test |
| March 10, 2006 | Opera | public weekly build | First Windows-based browser to pass test. A public beta was released on April 20, also successful. |
| March 24, 2006 | iCab | build public to members only | iCab 3.0.2b400 adds a switch to hide the scrollbars |
| March 28, 2006 | Konqueror | official release | Although previous releases passed, their compliance was questionable. This version does not wrongly show scrollbars. |
| April 12, 2006 | Firefox | semi-public build | Files to make this build are available, but require some assembly. This build passes Acid2 except a very minor problem: The nose is pushed 1 pixel up and left, due to a border drawing issue. |
| May 24, 2006 | Opera Mobile | non-public build | First mobile browser to pass test |
| Jun 20, 2006 | Opera 9.0 | official release | First browser supporting multiple platforms to pass the test |
| Jun 30, 2006 | Obigo Browser | non-public build | Second mobile browser to pass test |
| Mar 14, 2006 | Shiira | official release | |
Trivia
Opera 9 includes an easter egg that, when triggered[link], affects the Acid2 test. After the page has been open for a while, the eyes of the smiley will follow the cursor around and when the user clicks on the eyes, a message will show up saying "Because just passing is not enough ;)".See also
References
External links
- [Acid2 test]
- [Acid2 press release]
- [Article in CNET that proposed the Acid2 test]
- [Safari first gold browser to pass Acid2]
- [Mozilla Foundation's Acid2 tracking bug]
- [Acid2 in major browsers] - Shows Acid2 rendered in Safari, Prince, Opera, iCab, Konqueror, Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox, and Internet Explorer, showing their progressive improvements
- [Complete overview of Opera's Acid2 fixes]
- [Press release from YesLogic: Prince 5.1 passes rigorous Acid2 test]
- [Acid2 - the truth about Safari, iCab and Konqueror]
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