BDUG 9/21: Don't Break your Site when you Change your CSS!

Berkeley Drupal Users Group: September 21, 12-1:30pm
WHERE: UC Berkeley Campus: D-Lab (356 Barrows)
MAP: http://groups.drupal.org/berkeley/map

NOTE: BDUG will take place at the D-Lab Convening Room (356 Barrows Hall).

** This session is applicable beyond just Drupal users - any designer or developer who works with CSS could benefit from the techniques we'll be discussing. **

Don't Break your Site when you Change your CSS!

Designers and developers! Have you ever made a seemingly-simple change to your site’s CSS, only to discover later that it caused display problems in places you didn’t think to look at? Maybe that change to your mobile menu looks fine at 320px, but unexpectedly breaks at 600. How do you verify that the fixes you’re making on one element aren’t breaking anything else - preferably before you upload your changes anywhere?

Luckily there are tools you can use to streamline and automate this process. It’s called “visual regression testing,” and we’re implementing it for Open Berkeley. You can take snapshots of your site at different widths and generate a visual representation of just the changes. You can exclude elements that you know are going to change. You can compare two sites, or compare one site against its baseline.

Topics include:

• BrowserStack and similar services
• Wraith for local testing
• Selenium for interactive testing

This session is aimed at all designers and developers who work with CSS. You don’t need to use Drupal, Wordpress, or anything in particular to benefit from visual regression testing. Familiarity with command-line tools will be helpful for some of the topics in this session.

About Berkeley Drupal Users Group meetings:

• We are making an effort to select topics that directly benefit UC Berkeley employees using Drupal.
• Please let us know if you are interested in presenting at BDUG.
• Discussion format: Meetings will not always be formal presentations. Some meetings will be discussions centered around a predefined topic. Discussions will be initiated by a leader who will briefly present an overview of the topic possibly including demonstrations or supporting materials. The session leaves ample space for organic discussion. Participants are encouraged to:
  • Respond in these forums with ideas for the present meeting or future meetings
  • Bring problems encountered, questions and contributions to the meeting