Introducing BrowserSwarm – Spend less time testing your next JavaScript project

Today, along with appendTo and Sauce Labs, we are releasing BrowserSwarm – an open source tool that helps Web developers automate testing of their JavaScript frameworks and libraries across devices and browsers. Quality frameworks are the foundation for the modern Web, but framework developers often do not have the resources to test across browsers. BrowserSwarm helps developers build great, interoperable frameworks. The project complements modern.IE, which provides a set of free tools and resources to help developers build Web sites for all modern browsers.

You can set-up your BrowserSwarm account in minutes here.

BrowserSwarm: Fast, Actionable Test Results

BrowserSwarm connects directly to your team’s code repository on GitHub and uses Sauce Labs’ cloud to automatically run Unit Tests using QUnit. A simple report separates which test cases passed and failed so you can quickly see what needs to be fixed.

BrowserSwarm provides test results using top frameworks and libraries such as prototype.js and Modernizr. You receive an overall pass rate across browsers and devices, along with individual test pass rates for top browsers.

Here is an example from a recent Job for underscore.js:

Sample BrowserSwarm test result page for underscore.js

Individual job reports display only the test cases that fail, so you can quickly focus on what needs to be fixed. You can always view the full test output if you are familiar with running Unit Tests in QUnit.

Sample BrowserSwarm detailed error report

Community Contributions Make BrowserSwarm Testing Even Better

The testing power of BrowserSwarm grows as the community contributes to the open source project. Here are a few ways that you can help grow BrowserSwarm:

• More projects – Add yours to BrowserSwarm here.
• More test cases – Contribute new Unit Test Frameworks or Test Cases to run.
• More places you store your code – We have connected BrowserSwarm to GitHub, but you can connect it to your own repository.

Please share your feedback and ideas on how we might improve BrowserSwarm.

Our Commitment to the Web – Interoperability, Tools, and Resources

BrowserSwarm is an open source partnership – continuing our long history of working with the community to make the Web better. We have over 90 Microsoft people involved in 63 W3C working groups, and we have submitted thousands of test cases and hundreds of core reference docs to WebPlatform.org. With the new F12 Developer Tools in IE11, free site scanning tool on modern.ie, and free virtual machines, we continue to help developers build a new class of modern Web experiences.

Sandeep Singhal

Group Program Manager, Internet Explorer

Questions? Suggestions? Reach out to @IEDevChat .

Comments

• Anonymous
  September 26, 2013
  Wow, great work! Thanks to all of you! :)

• Anonymous
  September 26, 2013
  Great! ...unless you don't use GitHub(!)

• Anonymous
  September 26, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  September 26, 2013
  Microsoft refueling

• Anonymous
  September 26, 2013
  Wow! I am actually impressed. Open source too! I just hope it isn't like Microsoft Expression brand. It seemed very promising at first but... Anyway, it is dissolved and discontinued.

• Anonymous
  September 27, 2013
  Have you got a status update on fixing the IE Blog Comment Form?! Have you got a status update on fixing the IE Blog Comment Form?! Have you got a status update on fixing the IE Blog Comment Form?! Have you got a status update on fixing the IE Blog Comment Form?! Have you got a status update on fixing the IE Blog Comment Form?! Have you got a status update on fixing the IE Blog Comment Form?! Posting new articles on this blog without fixing the platform it runs on (or at least providing an ETA and a WARNING message on the comment form about the bug) is just insulting to your readers and shows that you don't really care about our feedback at all.

• Anonymous
  September 27, 2013
  This is silly. Why not just update all the users to current bowser ? Why do I as a developer have to worry about IE 8?

• Anonymous
  September 27, 2013
  A little update on the Ebay 100% cpu usage bug... it seems it is caused by old versions of Jquery used on ebay, that can't deal with the user agent sniffing. When using the IE10 useragent, it runs fine.

• Anonymous
  September 28, 2013
  Yes but the "hundreds of core reference docs to WebPlatform.org" are badly written, full of errors, incomplete, too Windows or IE specific and look like they have been written by a group of non-programmers that knew nothing about the subject matter. It would have been better if Mozilla had donated instead its wonderful docs on MDN (Mozilla Developer Network). They even have nice examples and mention important things that you should look out for, such as important platform incompatibilitits or other differences. Much much much better. Why is MSDN so bad? Not only IE docs but Windows docs too? Especially the Win32 ones? Why no change after 15 years, even though they are reviewed every few months the same content gets republished each time.

• Anonymous
  September 28, 2013
  @More Important - Seriously, stop with posting that, it's not Microsofts blog software, they don't make this, that's another company. You'll have to ask them to fix it.

• Anonymous
  September 28, 2013
  @James - WebPlatform.org is a wiki, and as such is editable by anyone. If you saw any errors with Microsoft's contributions, you would do better to register as an editor and correct them, rather than spam this blog with vague and unhelpful comments. Also, why are you asking the IE team about the state of the Win32 MSDN docs?

• Anonymous
  September 29, 2013
  Как автор программы для математического моделирования сложных технических систем для веб-платформы. Точно знаю, что ИЕ лучший браузер для пользователей. 15 лет он не подводит посетителей моего сайта. Но опыт расчета реальных математических моделей показывает результат отличающийся от заявления разработчиков javascript-движка ИЕ. Браузер FF24 рассчитывает любые математические модели программы Jigrein4WEB в 2 раза быстрее чем ИЕ10. Впрочем, ради справедливости, следует отметить, что FF не прерывает исполняемое веб-вокером (Web Worker API) математическое ядро для обслуживания сообщений (клавиатуры). Есть предположение, что ИЕ, каждую десятую секунды (после обслуживания сообщений) разрушает кэш исполняемого кода под веб-вокером, предполагая возможные изменения его конфигурации (математического ядра). В этом действительно есть смысл, и даже с точки зрения безопасности. Но необходима функция контроля отмены повторной трансляции javascript-кода. Другое возможное решение увеличения скорости - использовать AOT-компиляцию для скриптов вызываемых посредством Worker API и обращать внимание на то, как авторы кода объявляют переменные. Во многих случаях авторы подсказывают компилятору тип данных (см проект AsmJS.org).

• Anonymous
  September 29, 2013
  @Yannick: well, they chose this software, so they have some responsibility. It's much like subcontracting. Let's say you're having a wedding celebration, and the cake is horrible. Are you going to tell your guests: "Well, I'm not the cook, so just go and complain to the cook", as if it's none of your concern?

• Anonymous
  September 29, 2013
  Its not a wedding cake, its software we are talking about! Blame where it makes sense and get a life.

• Anonymous
  September 29, 2013
  Fantastic, great way to learn more, and do better on the web

• Anonymous
  September 29, 2013
  @@Stifu: it seems you have troubles understanding analogies. Here's another (imaginary) one that you might understand: MS want to create tablets, and have to choose a manufacturer to make them. They choose a bad one, that does a poor job. When end users complain about their broken tablets, should MS just reply "It's not our problem, just complain to the tablet manufacturer"?

• Anonymous
  September 30, 2013
  @Stifo - Well yes, ofcourse it's then Microsoft to blame, because they sell the software and we are the customers. But with this blog software, Microsoft is the customer, not us.

• Anonymous
  September 30, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  September 30, 2013
  Great!!!

• Anonymous
  September 30, 2013
  @Yannick: "But with this blog software, Microsoft is the customer, not us." And we are MS customers / guests here, and we don't need to know who or what is behind the software they made or picked, it should just work. You guys have a twisted idea of service, which puts the burden of the customer / end user. What if MS picked a blog system that doesn't work or start at all, would we also have to complain directly to the blog maker rather than to MS? They chose this particular blog system, so it's their responsibility to ensure it works. We complain to MS, and then they take our complaints in consideration however they want (ie: contact the blog maker themselves, choose a different blog system... or just ignore us).

• Anonymous
  October 01, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  October 01, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  October 01, 2013
  Dear BrowserSwarm -- Please help. You have a great product. I was wondering, is there a way to use BrowserSwarm without having to link to GitHub? Can I run it locally, at my company, without having to put my code online somewhere? With major corporate assets at stake, it is just not possible to make all our source code as open-source projects. Is BrowserSwarm now (or ever) going to help my company given that our projects are not open-source? Please advise. Thanks. -- Mark Kamoski

• Anonymous
  October 02, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  October 03, 2013
  @Mark -- thank you for your feedback!  We will consider support for other code repositories in the future.  You can send detailed feedback on your repository requirements to the BrowserSwarm team (frameworkauthor@browserswarm.com).   For your corporate project, we also recommend the modern.IE scanner which you can deploy inside your corporate firewall.  For more information, visit github.com/.../modern.IE-static-code-scan.  

• Anonymous
  October 07, 2013
  Please Microsoft do not submit any of your UPPER CASE or tAG SouP markup to Any site Anywhere on the Internet as "documentation" of any kind! We are sick of this garbage being spread around the Internet encouraging bad development practices. Just Don't! For everything you have submitted please ensure all of it (100% of it!) is cleaned up!