Dreamweaver CS6: The Missing Manual

Previewing Web Pages in BrowserLab

Adobe’s free BrowserLab service is like having a legion of Windows and Macintosh PCs with various browsers and browser versions at your beck and call. Basically, BrowserLab provides screenshots of your web pages so you can see how your designs hold up in different browsers. If you’re on Windows and don’t have access to a Mac, or vice versa, BrowserLab is a simple way to cross-test your pages. You can even test interactive page elements, like Spry drop-down menus.

BrowserLab Setup

Dreamweaver lets you tap into BrowserLab as if you were previewing your page in a local web browser, by choosing File→Preview In Browser→BrowserLab. However, you need to do a little setup before you can get it to work:

1. Get an Adobe Account at https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/membership/index.cfm.

   It’s free and you only need to supply a few pieces of information, like your name, email address, city, country, and Zip code.

2. Visit https://browserlab.adobe.com and click the Sign In button at the top-right of the page.

   A form appears asking for your Adobe ID (that’s your email address) and the password you supplied when you signed up for your Adobe account.

3. Type in your email address and password, and then click the Sign In button.

   The first time you sign in, you have to accept the Terms of Use agreement. You know these things: lots of legal mumbo-jumbo that nobody reads.

   Once you sign in, you go to the main Adobe BrowserLab screen. There’s not much to it, but this is where you’ll preview ...