Let’s say, for whatever reason, you don’t have access to funds for comprehensive, robust QA software. Maybe you are working for a non-profit, a small start-up, or (gasp) QA isn’t your top priority. There are free and effective alternatives. They may not all be the most efficient tools in the shed, but they will indeed help you produce a more refined product.
A couple of my favorites are the browser add-ons:
Among many other things, you can use these tools do the basics such as validate links, run simplified load tests, view CSS data on specific page elements and resize your browser window on the fly. The downfall is that you have to do it one page at a time rather than crawling the entire site with a single click as with the paid software.
There are free link validators that will crawl an entire site but may require a little more ramp-up time, which will pay off in the end:
Whichever you choose, be aware that some tools out there do not validate links within Flash and/or JavaScript files.
Other handy tools:
- Jing (by techsmith). Capture screenshots of windows, panes or regions and mark them up via type, point and highlight features. Save and share via URL, image or file. Free image hosting on Screencast.com or upload to your flickr account. For a fee, they offer video capture as well, which can be easily uploaded to Screencast or YouTube or saved in your SWF directory or FTP site. You can even narrate with a mic. I *LOVE* this tool for dealing with those hard-to-explain QA scenarios. It’s especially handy if you or your cohorts are working remotely.
- Notepad ++ (not to be confused with Notepad, the basic text editor). Highlight syntax for nearly 50 markup, programming and scripting languages.
- Browsershots. Take a screenshot of your page in 4 different operating systems and about 80 different browser versions. It can be painfully slow, but it’s free — and it enables you to see your site in almost every environment.
- XML-Sitemaps.com. With a little creativity, you can use a tool for more than what it was originally intended. For example, I’ve found it helpful for viewing html site maps, checking browser title spelling/formatting consistency, seeing standalone pages, accessing comprehensive lists of resources and so on.
- Adobe Flash Player Settings Manager. I use this to clear my Flash cache, which is stored differently than typical browser cache. It’s a lot easier than trying to remember how to navigate to the folder on your machine.
- Spell check. I wish I could tell you there was a free, automated site-wide spell checker out there that worked in multiple languages, enabled the user to create profiles (for product names and such), etc. But, alas, I cannot.
Here’s where I teeter from free to thrifty. If you can muster up about $60 you’ll find Inspyder’s InSite to be worth your while. It validates links, checks spelling (including meta data), counts words and spits out detailed reports that you can finagle to gain other types of data, such as a breakdown of internal vs. external links, file types (png, gif, jpg, pdf, etc.). It’s really user friendly, too. Now, if someone can point me to a $60 tool that does ALL of these things (and a few more).…
* Plus 1 thrifty, not-so-free tool you'll want anyway.