#Chrome Dev Tools

[pennylunfersqueak]

i started reading an article and couldn’t continue due to not having a subscription.

then i remembered. the answer lies in ✨disabling Javascript ✨

tutorial links below, for anyone who also can’t find The OG Tumblr Post:

Chrome:

Firefox:

[enoua5]

If you want something more objective than just seeing if you can read it in black and white, check out WebAIM's Contrast Checker

You simply use the two color pickers to pick the background and foreground colors. It will show you the contrast, as well as whether the pair passes the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

Note, this is split into two levels; WCAG AA means that it will be accessible to the vast majority of people, even with visual disabilities. WCAG AAA means "enhanced" accessibility, and indicates that the text should be just about as readable as black-on-white

found these on twitter that might be helpful to all rpers who want to make sure their themes and carrds are accessible to all

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Lina Khan’s future is the future of the Democratic Party — and America

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

On the one hand, the anti-monopoly movement has a future no matter who wins the 2024 election – that's true even if Kamala Harris wins but heeds the calls from billionaire donors to fire Lina Khan and her fellow trustbusters.

In part, that's because US antitrust laws have broad "private rights of action" that allow individuals and companies to sue one another for monopolistic conduct, even if top government officials are turning a blind eye. It's true that from the Reagan era to the Biden era, these private suits were few and far between, and the cases that were brought often died in a federal courtroom. But the past four years has seen a resurgence of antitrust rage that runs from left to right, and from individuals to the C-suites of big companies, driving a wave of private cases that are prevailing in the courts, upending the pro-monopoly precedents that billionaires procured by offering free "continuing education" antitrust training to 40% of the Federal judiciary:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down

It's amazing to see the DoJ racking up huge wins against Google's monopolistic conduct, sure, but first blood went to Epic, who won a historic victory over Google in federal court six months before the DoJ's win, which led to the court ordering Google to open up its app store:

https://www.theverge.com/policy/2024/10/7/24243316/epic-google-permanent-injunction-ruling-third-party-stores

Google's 30% App Tax is a giant drag on all kinds of sectors, as is its veto over which software Android users get to see, so Epic's win is going to dramatically alter the situation for all kinds of activities, from beleaguered indie game devs:

https://antiidlereborn.com/news/

To the entire news sector:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-must-open-app-stores

Private antitrust cases have attracted some very surprising plaintiffs, like Michael Jordan, whose long policy of apoliticism crumbled once he bought a NASCAR team and lived through the monopoly abuses of sports leagues as an owner, not a player:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/michael-jordan-anti-monopolist

A much weirder and more unlikely antitrust plaintiff than Michael Jordan is Google, the perennial antitrust defendant. Google has brought a complaint against Microsoft in the EU, based on Microsoft's extremely ugly monopolistic cloud business:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-files-complaint-eu-over-microsoft-cloud-practices-2024-09-25/

Google's choice of venue here highlights another reason to think that the antitrust surge will continue irrespective of US politics: antitrust is global. Antitrust fervor has seized governments from the UK to the EU to South Korea to Japan. All of those countries have extremely similar antitrust laws, because they all had their statute books overhauled by US technocrats as part of the Marshall Plan, so they have the same statutory tools as the American trustbusters who dismantled Standard Oil and AT&T, and who are making ready to shatter Google into several competing businesses:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/8/24265832/google-search-antitrust-remedies-framework-android-chrome-play

Antitrust fever has spread to Canada, Australia, and even China, where the Cyberspace Directive bans Chinese tech giants from breaking interoperability to freeze out Chinese startups. Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops, and the cost of 40 years of pro-monopoly can't be ignored. Monopolies make the whole world more brittle, even as the cost of that brittleness mounts. It's hard to pretend monopolies are fine when a single hurricane can wipe out the entire country's supply of IV fluid – again:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-10-11-cant-believe-im-writing-about-iv-fluid-again/

What's more, the conduct of global monopolists is the same in every country where they have taken hold, which means that trustbusters in the EU can use the UK Digital Markets Unit's report on the mobile app market as a roadmap for their enforcement actions against Apple:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63f61bc0d3bf7f62e8c34a02/Mobile_Ecosystems_Final_Report_amended_2.pdf

And then the South Korean and Japanese trustbusters can translate the court documents from the EU's enforcement action and use them to score victories over Apple in their own courts:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/10/an-injury-to-one/#is-an-injury-to-all

So on the one hand, the trustbusting wave will continue erode the foundations of global monopolies, no matter what happens after this election. But on the other hand, if Harris wins and then fires Biden's top trustbusters to appease her billionaire donors, things are going to get ugly.

A new, excellent long-form Bloomberg article by Josh Eidelson and Max Chafkin gives a sense of the battle raging just below the surface of the Democratic Power, built around a superb interview with Khan herself:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-10-09/lina-khan-on-a-second-ftc-term-ai-price-gouging-data-privacy

The article begins with a litany of tech billionaires who've gone an all-out, public assault on Khan's leadership – billionaires who stand to personally lose hundreds of millions of dollars from her agency's principled, vital antitrust work, but who cloak their objection to Khan in rhetoric about defending the American economy. In public, some of these billionaires are icily polite, but many of them degenerate into frothing, toddler-grade name-calling, like IAB's Barry Diller, who called her a "dope" and Musk lickspittle Jason Calacanis, who called her an all-caps COMMUNIST and a LUNATIC.

The overall vibe from these wreckers? "How dare the FTC do things?!"

And you know, they have a point. For decades, the FTC was – in the quoted words of Tim Wu – "a very hardworking agency that did nothing." This was the period when the FTC targeted low-level scammers while turning a blind eye to the monsters that were devouring the US economy. In part, that was because the FTC had been starved of budget, trapping them in a cycle of racking up easy, largely pointless "wins" against penny-ante grifters to justify their existence, but never to the extent that Congress would apportion them the funds to tackle the really serious cases (if this sounds familiar, it's also the what happened during the long period when the IRS chased middle class taxpayers over minor filing errors, while ignoring the billionaires and giant corporations that engaged in 7- and 8-figure tax scams).

But the FTC wasn't merely underfunded: it was timid. The FTC has extremely broad enforcement and rulemaking powers, which most sat dormant during the neoliberal era:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

The Biden administration didn't merely increase the FTC's funding: in choosing Khan to helm the organization, they brought onboard a skilled technician, who was both well-versed in the extensive but unused powers of the agency and determined to use them:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

But Khan's didn't just rely on technical chops and resources to begin the de-olicharchification of the US economy: she built a three-legged stool, whose third leg is narrative. Khan's signature is her in-person and remote "listening tours," where workers who've been harmed by corporate power get to tell their stories. Bloomberg recounts the story of Deborah Brantley, who was sexually harassed and threatened by her bosses at Kavasutra North Palm Beach. Brantley's bosses touched her inappropriately and "joked" about drugging her and raping her so she "won’t be such a bitch and then maybe people would like you more."

When Brantley finally quit and took a job bartending at a different business, Kavasutra sued her over her noncompete clause, alleging an "irreparable injury" sustained by having one of their former employees working at another business, seeking damages and fees.

The vast majority of the 30 million American workers who labor under noncompetes are like Brantley, low-waged service workers, especially at fast-food restaurants (so Wendy's franchisees can stop minimum wage cashiers from earning $0.25/hour more flipping burgers at a nearby McDonald's). The donor-class indenturers who defend noncompetes claim that noncompetes are necessary to protect "innovative" businesses from losing their "IP." But of course, the one state where no workers are subject to noncompetes is California, which bans them outright – the state that is also home to Silicon Valley, an IP-heave industry that the same billionaires laud for its innovations.

After that listening tour, Khan's FTC banned noncompetes nationwide:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/25/capri-v-tapestry/#aiming-at-dollars-not-men

Only to have a federal judge in Texas throw out their ban, a move that will see $300b/year transfered from workers to shareholders, and block the formation of 8,500 new US businesses every year:

https://www.npr.org/2024/08/21/g-s1-18376/federal-judge-tosses-ftc-noncompetes-ban

Notwithstanding court victories like Epic v Google and DoJ v Google, America's oligarchs have the courts on their side, thanks to decades of court-packing planned by the Federalist Society and executed by Senate Republicans and Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and Trump. Khan understands this; she told Bloomberg that she's a "close student" of the tactics Reagan used to transform American society, admiring his effectiveness while hating his results. Like other transformative presidents, good and bad, Reagan had to fight the judiciary and entrenched institutions (as did FDR and Lincoln). Erasing Reagan's legacy is a long-term project, a battle of inches that will involve mustering broad political support for the cause of a freer, more equal America.

Neither Biden nor Khan are responsible for the groundswell of US – and global – movement to euthanize our rentier overlords. This is a moment whose time has come; a fact demonstrated by the tens of thousands of working Americans who filled the FTC's noncompete docket with outraged comments. People understand that corporate looters – not "the economy" or "the forces of history" – are the reason that the businesses where they worked and shopped were destroyed by private equity goons who amassed intergenerational, dynastic fortunes by strip-mining the real economy and leaving behind rubble.

Like the billionaires publicly demanding that Harris fire Khan, private equity bosses can't stop making tone-deaf, guillotine-conjuring pronouncements about their own virtue and the righteousness of their businesses. They don't just want to destroy the world - they want to be praised for it:/p>

"Private equity’s been a great thing for America" -Stephen Pagliuca, co-chairman of Bain Capital;

"We are taught to judge the success of a society by how it deals with the least able, most vulnerable members of that society. Shouldn’t we judge a society by how they treat the most successful? Do we vilify, tax, expropriate and condemn those who have succeeded, or do we celebrate economic success as the engine that propels our society toward greater collective well-being?" -Marc Rowan, CEO of Apollo

"Achieve life-changing money and power," -Sachin Khajuria, former partner at Apollo

Meanwhile, the "buy, strip and flip" model continues to chew its way through America. When PE buys up all the treatment centers for kids with behavioral problems, they hack away at staffing and oversight, turning them into nightmares where kids are routinely abused, raped and murdered:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/they-told-me-it-was-going-be-good-place-allega-tions-n987176

When PE buys up nursing homes, the same thing happens, with elderly residents left to sit in their own excrement and then die:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/24/nursing-homes-private-equity-fraud-00132001

Writing in The Guardian, Alex Blasdel lays out the case for private equity as a kind of virus that infects economies, parasitically draining them of not just the capacity to provide goods and services, but also of the ability to govern themselves, as politicians and regulators are captured by the unfathomable sums that PE flushes into the political process:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/oct/10/slash-and-burn-is-private-equity-out-of-control

Now, the average worker who's just lost their job may not understand "divi recaps" or "2-and-20" or "carried interest tax loopholes," but they do understand that something is deeply rotten in the world today.

What happens to that understanding is a matter of politics. The Republicans – firmly affiliated with, and beloved of, the wreckers – have chosen an easy path to capitalizing on the rising rage. All they need to do is convince the public that the system is irredeemably corrupt and that the government can't possibly fix anything (hence Reagan's asinine "joke": "the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help'").

This is a very canny strategy. If you are the party of "governments are intrinsically corrupt and incompetent," then governing corruptly and incompetently proves your point. The GOP strategy is to create a nation of enraged nihilists who don't even imagine that the government could do something to hold their bosses to account – not for labor abuses, not for pollution, not for wage theft or bribery.

The fact that successive neoliberal governments – including Democratic administrations – acted time and again to bear out this hypothesis makes it easy for this kind of nihilism to take hold.

Far-right conspiracies about pharma bosses colluding with corrupt FDA officials to poison us with vaccines for profit owe their success to the lived experience of millions of Americans who lost loved ones to a conspiracy between pharma bosses and corrupt officials to poison us with opioids.

Unhinged beliefs that "they" caused the hurricanes tearing through Florida and Georgia and that Kamala Harris is capping compensation to people who lost their homes are only credible because of murderous Republican fumble during Katrina; and the larcenous collusion of Democrats to help banks steal Americans' homes during the foreclosure crisis, when Obama took Tim Geithner's advice to "foam the runway" with the mortgages of everyday Americans who'd been cheated by their banks:

https://www.salon.com/2014/05/14/this_man_made_millions_suffer_tim_geithners_sorry_legacy_on_housing/

If Harris gives in to billionaire donors and fires Khan and her fellow trustbusters, paving the way for more looting and scamming, the result will be more nihilism, which is to say, more electoral victories for the GOP. The "government can't do anything" party already exists. There are no votes to be gained by billing yourself as the "we also think governments can't do anything" party.

In other words, a world where Khan doesn't run the FTC is a world where antitrust continues to gain ground, but without taking Democrats with it. It's a world where nihilism wins.

There's factions of the Democratic Party who understand this. AOC warned party leaders that, "Anyone goes near Lina Khan and there will be an out and out brawl":

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1844034727935988155

And Bernie Sanders called her "the best FTC Chair in modern history":

https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1843733298960576652

In other words: Lina Khan as a posse.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/11/democracys-antitrust-paradox/#there-will-be-an-out-and-out-brawl

[silvermoon424]

Bulk downloading tools for images

I've been obsessively bulk downloading Twitter artists because of how uncertain the future of the platform is. I've also gotten into bulk downloading images as a faster alternative to my usual saving methods. I figured I might as well share the tools I use! I'm a Mac user, so all of these tools are both Mac and Windows accessible.

WFDownloader

An absolutely excellent bulk downloading tool. This app handles many more websites than gallery-dl, and it's particularly good for downloading entire Twitter pages. What's more, you can still download images from sites that aren't technically supported via the crawler feature. WFDownloader also gets major points for having highly detailed tutorials and a very responsive, helpful dev you can email for assistance.

Gallery-dl

This is a command line program, so it requires a bit of tech savvy. Most of the steps are outlined on the Github page. This program allows you to bulk download things like Pixiv pages, Tumblr blogs, Deviantart galleries, Instagram pages, etc. Some websites (like Pixiv) may require user authentication; the GitHub page outlines the steps each authentication process requires.

ESUIT

A Chrome extension that lets you bulk download Facebook galleries (something the two aforementioned tools don't do). The only drawback is that the free, basic version only lets you download the first 300 pictures in an album; you'll have to upgrade to a paid membership if you want to bulk download more than 300 photos. However, it's still a very helpful tool, especially if you're only planning on downloading smaller albums.

These are the 3 bulk downloaders I can personally vouch for, although many more exist. Feel free to recommend your own.

[divorcingjimmatthews]

How to download the promo pictures from the Amazon MGM site

https://press.amazonmgmstudios.com/us/en/mgm-plus-series/from/3

SPOILER WARNING: This link contains promotional images released by the network up to S3E9. Don't go in if you don't want to see promotional images for S3E9.

If you go on the press site for the show you will find a lot of pictures that can be nice for edits and other fandom purposes, however you will find that you can't 'right click -> save' them which is annoying.

There's a workaround (that you can use for any picture on the internet, not just these pictures).

First, hit F2 key on your keyboard to see the browser's developer tools. I'm on Chrome, but it's similar for all browsers.

Next, click on this little button.

Now you can hover over and click-select any element on the page.

When you click on the picture, the dev tools tab will switch to show you the HTML element that contains it.

Open this link in a new tab through 'hover -> click' or select it, copy it and paste it on a new tab manually.

You can now right-click and save the image!

Unfortunately the highest quality I could find in the HTML is not that high (700px), but it's still not bad.

[honestlyvan]

The main feature apps like this offer are QOL improvements like different layouts, fonts, reading statistics and timers, and the aforementioned download features that are already a part of Ao3.

And if you want to use an app for those features -- honestly, I don't see why not? But be aware that Ao3 supports user-created skins that can look like literally anything you want (and although you do have to know enough CSS to make a theme yourself, lots of fans out there make AO3 skins just for fun -- you just gotta talk to one of them to ask how to make the changes you'd prefer and most likely they're happy to help out) and there are userscripts that act as site extensions that provide all those features and more (with, again, people actively developing them that you can ask help from to write your own if you don't like any of the ones available)

If you don't want the hassle of finding this stuff out or talking to people to ask for these features, you do you I guess. But don't ever pay money for one of these apps, no matter what it does. If it's showing you adds, if it's asking you to buy it, DO NOT, they're asking you to pay for features other fans have already provided for free through other methods.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS

WHO IS USING THIS

AN APP??? THEY HAVE A FUNCTIONING WEBSITE

THE LAST FUNCTIONING WEBSITE

[kitkatt0430]

Instead of doing a Six Sentence Sunday today, I think I'll do a short tutorial on copying over fanfic from FFnet to Ao3.

So you've got some old fics on FFnet and you'd like to back them up to Ao3, given the instability of FFnet. And for whatever reason you don't have the original files for the fics, or maybe you have edits to the FFnet versions that you don't want to lose that the OG files don't have. Whatever the reason, you're looking to directly copy over your fic from FFnet to Ao3. And you're looking for a relatively easy way to do so, but Ao3's import functionality doesn't work with FFnet web pages.

Never fear! It's actually a fairly easy process to get your fic copied over from FFnet.

First, head over to FFnet and open up the fic you want to port over to Ao3. You don't need to log in if you don't want to, just so long as the fic in question is yours and you can access the page, then you're good.

In a separate tab, open Ao3 and login, then choose the option for posting a new work.

Now back on the FFnet tab, you should be able to directly copy over the title, summary, fandom, and what little tagging was available on that site onto the relevant Ao3 fields in the tab you have for a new fic. You'll also want to take note of the published date on FFnet and back date the new work in the Ao3 tab.

FFnet may not have a lot of useful tag data, but it's pretty easy to replicate and build off that in Ao3.

Now for the hard part. Which is still pretty easy. Getting the fic body, plus any notes in the fic itself, copied over to FFnet.

While getting around FFnet's lockdown on the text of the fics they host is fairly simple - I'm pretty sure it's entirely css based - you don't really need to do that in order to get the body of your fic copied. And, honestly, even if you do have a work around in place to allow copying of the fic's text... you will probably find the following method a lot easier still.

In the body of the fic, right click the first line of the fic, which should bring up a menu with a bunch of options. On Firefox or Chrome you want the inspect option.

This'll bring up the dev tools with the html inspection tab open and, if you give it a few seconds to load, the specific line you right clicked to inspect should become the visibly selected section of the html.

The selected section of the html should be a paragraph (or <p>) element. You're going to want to right click the div (<div>) element that encapsulates that paragraph and the rest of the paragraphs in the fic body. This'll bring up another browser menu with the option to copy, which will bring up a flyout menu when you select it. From that flyout menu, you want the select the option for Inner HTML.

You have officially copied the html for the fic body. And you can dump that entirely in html format straight into Ao3's html work text editor. Then switch it to rich text for easier editing if you want to fix any spelling, grammar, formatting, or aesthetic issues. I typically try to fix at least the line breaks since it took a long while before FFnet adopted real line breaks and so there are a lot of fics where I have various combinations of dashes, em-dashes, equals signs, and other characters as line breaks. I figure, if I'm bringing the fic to Ao3 then I can try to make it more screen reader friendly in the process.

You can also move fic notes around in order to move pre/post fic notes out of the fic body or basically whatever you want to the fic. Maybe re-read it to determine any additional tagging you want to add now that your fic has access to Ao3's much more robust tagging system.

But that's it. You can hit post and have your fic with all it's original notes, and a back dated post date to reflect when it was actually written, all available on Ao3 now.

It's a pretty quick process, all told, and the only real bottleneck you might encounter is any time spent in re-editing the fic between migrating and posting. Even chaptered fics are fairly easy to migrate with this process, since the bulk of the work in publishing a new chapter is just copying the inner html and then moving any notes to the appropriate location before hitting post.

Anyway, for my fellow fic writers looking to move your old FFnet fics to a more stable archive, I hope this process helps a lot.

[16naughts]

Dev Log Mar 14 2025 - What's Taking so Long?

The Steam Deck version of Crescent Roll is moving along. The full game is playable, most of the audio issues have been resolved, but there's still the very slight teeny-tiny issue of WebKit being abysmally slow and we're sitting at only 10% CPU usage and 20FPS. Joy. We can fix it though. Without having to switch Web Browsers. I explained a bit before that the two options available for Web embedding are either Chromium/Chrome or WebKit/Safari, depending on your platform. Windows, Android and Xbox all have Chromium natively for you to use, Mac, IPhone, PlayStation, and Nintendo have WebKit, and then Linux and therefor Steam Deck don't have a standard one installed. We went with WebKit for Steam Deck because it's 200MB instead of 1.5GB and we have to bundle it with our game. When I said we can fix it, it's not that the actual game part of Crescent Roll isn't optimized - we actually did a pretty good job with all of the movement on-screen every frame - but there's some very specific things large surrounding it that we know are hurting performance considerably. Here a visualization of the call stack of a random average frame on the Main Menu from the Chrome profiling tools from my 10-year old i7-4770k machine:

The grey "Task" bar is the full length of the execution. The brown-yellow underneath are what run during the actual "Animation Frame" portion, then the Blue sections are Crescent Roll code, and Green is Phaser rendering code. So in this frame, it took 4.16ms for the full frame, of which, Crescent Roll used about 1.8ms to do its stuff, then Phaser took 1.5ms to do the render, and the remaining ~0.8ms was system stuff like GC and doing memory transfers to the GPU. 60Hz refresh rate would mean that you need to render in under 16 ms, so about 4ms for Windows Desktop means that I could theoretically get somewhere around 240fps if I let it run free. Which I mean, is pretty respectable. Why doesn't it run well on the deck? Technically, it's running okay, just not displaying okay. The internal game logic does all physics and animation calculations with lag compensation in mind. So whether you're getting 500 fps or 5, the in-game logic always calculates 60Hz. So sorry - no cheesing stage times with slow-mo. One reason the display is having issues is that it's single threaded. Which means we're not doing _anything_ in parallel. All of the game logic, graphics rendering, controller polling, etc. are all being done every frame in order every single time. The kicker is that we actually built the game to be able to do those things in parallel, but Javascript just doesn't have the concept of Threads for you to be able to just run whatever you want however you want. You have to implement Web Workers, which is essentially a completely separate program that you can't share memory with, forcing you to use a message bus, making life difficult. But not impossible, and that's all that really matters. Just splitting it in 2 would already get us a 25% improvement, and we could very likely do better than that. The other, slightly more major performance sink is that green bar for the Phaser rendering - that can be entirely eliminated at this point to cut the time in half. We've been replacing it piece-by-piece with our own code, and now, we're really just leaning on it for WebGL pushes at this point. Unfortunately, since it's an engine, there's quite a bit of extra baggage that it likes to do that we can't just turn off, so we're essentially running a lot of the same types of graphics calculations twice. Phaser is a perfectly good engine - don't get me wrong, but it's just superfluous for our use at this point, specifically for us.

So yeah - it's going to take another week or so to get that 100% sorted out. There's a patch incoming Monday for full Controller support and couple of minor improvements. In the meantime, you can swap to the beta branch on Steam if you absolutely must try the Steam Deck version now. No complaints about the speed though - I warned you.

[mythauragame]

Development Update - July 2023

Hi everyone, Miyazaki here! We've got some new things to roll out to you this month.

Topics covered:

Companion Codex

Beast expressions

Q1 (2023) Ko-fi Glamour and Companion results

Breeding Demo improvements

More under the cut!

Beast Expressions

Mythaura's quests--both main story quests as well as side quests--will feature interactions with NPCs. Your lead beast (which you can change at any time) will be engaging with these NPCs in every interaction, and both your beast and the NPC will show up on the screen during dialogue. Their expressions will change depending on choices made during dialogue selection.

These expressions are generated based the code from the Beast Creator. They will not show a beast's Gear, Apparel, or Glamours.

As of now the art team has completed all Specials and Supers for the adult and young Griffin bases!

At a future point, we plan on adding the expressions to the Beast Creator demo. We will announce this feature at a later date.

Companion Codex

As we've started to accumulate a good number of Companions for Mythaura, including many created thanks to generous Ko-fi and Patreon sponsors, we thought it'd be a good idea to put them all in one place for people to look at. To that end, we've created a Companion Codex page!

Each Companion will have its key information available for viewing, including:

Element

Standard and Radiant colorations

Size (with an average-sized adult Ryu for reference)

Description

Ability to zoom into image

We will be gradually adding more Companions as we finalize their sizes in the back end. When we add them, we'll share them in the #mini-updates channel in the Discord server.

NOTE: We are aware of a visual bug in Firefox when viewing companions. This is a bug in Firefox itself, and we will attempt to find a workaround for Firefox users. In the meantime, we recommend using Google Chrome or Safari to view the Companion Codex page.

Ko-fi Q1 (2023) Results

Thanks to all who voted on which Glamour and Companion we're moving forward with for Quater 1 (2023)!) The Filigree Moth Companion and Twilight Glamour for adult Hippogriffs will be this quarter's rewards.

We'll be back with the completed artwork for these two in the August dev update!

Breeding Predictor Improvements

We've made a lot of improvements to the Breeding Predictor this past month!

Speed majorly improved

Specials not layering correctly fixed

Supers are now only inherited when both parents have part of the Specials combo

Added ability to toggle between age when predicting

Made beast code boxes more intuitive to use, such as allowing pasting in place.

Mythaura v0.19

Creates companion endpoint and page

Adds sizes and default stats to companions

Creates concept of objects & floors in Wild Area

Began tile map editor project, allowing staff to create bespoke floors

Builds out encounter spawn logic and infrastructure

Adds concept of "timeslots" to control when specific encounters can spawn

Refactors back end tools to make changes more safe and clean up code

Fixes issue where battles could not run on Redis queue

Refactors front end dependency injection

Updates the breeding predictor to dramatically increase speed from several seconds to less than a second

Thank You!

Thanks for sticking through to the end of the post, we always look forward to sharing our month's work with all of you--thank you for taking the time to read. We'll see you around the Discord!

[josephkdavis]

8 Game-Changing Developer Tools to Skyrocket Your Productivity.

Let’s be honest: Sometimes coding isn’t the hard part—it’s everything else. The context switching. The bugs you can’t reproduce. The terminal black hole you get sucked into at 2AM.

Over the past year, I tried dozens of tools. These 8? They legitimately changed the game for me.

Here’s the list I wish someone handed me earlier 👇

🧠 Raycast – It’s Like Mac Spotlight, but on Steroids You know that moment when you reach for Spotlight and it’s painfully slow?

Raycast fixes that. It's lightning fast, totally extendable, and lets me do stuff like:

Run scripts

Search docs

Control GitHub PRs

Even trigger workflows

All with a couple keystrokes.

Productivity level: 🔥 Programmer with a keyboard superpower

🤖 Tabby (formerly Codeium) – AI Autocomplete, No Cloud Required This is your AI pair programmer, but local. It runs on your machine, respects your privacy, and still feels scary accurate.

You just code—and Tabby whispers the next line before you think it.

Hot take: AI autocomplete is now baseline. Tabby just does it smarter.

🖥️ Warp – The Terminal You Didn’t Know You Needed The first time I opened Warp, I was like: “Wait… why hasn’t the terminal looked like this all along?”

Input blocks

Modern UI

Real-time suggestions

Collaboration built-in

Feels like: VS Code had a baby with your terminal—and it grew up fast.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Zed – Pair Programming, but Actually Fun Zed is a super snappy code editor with real-time multiplayer built in. Think Google Docs, but for code—with speed that makes VS Code look sleepy.

Perfect for: Pair programming, mentoring, or just working with your future self.

🔍 LogRocket – Debug Like You’re Watching a Replay Have you ever tried to debug a user issue with just an error log?

LogRocket is like, “Here, watch the actual replay of what happened.”

See user sessions

Capture console logs

Rewind the moment everything broke

Result: 10x fewer “Can you send a screenshot?” messages.

⚡ Fig – Terminal Autocomplete That Feels Like Magic Fig turns your CLI into a cheat code machine.

Flags? Autocompleted.

Scripts? Suggested.

Git commands? Faster than your memory.

Vibe: It’s like your terminal suddenly got a brain (and a heart).

🧯 Sentry – Know When Things Break Before Twitter Does Sentry tells you when your app throws an error—in real time.

It works across languages, frameworks, and stacks. You get:

Stack traces

Performance metrics

Release tracking

Translation: Fewer angry DMs from product managers.

🔒 Tailscale – Private Networking Without the VPN Pain Need to connect your laptop, server, and Raspberry Pi like they’re in the same room?

Tailscale makes that happen with zero setup hell.

No port forwarding. No crying into your terminal.

Just install → login → done.

🎉 TL;DR: Stop Fighting Your Tools Being a dev today means juggling:

Meetings

Bugs

Context switches

200 Chrome tabs

These tools helped me claw back hours every week—and made coding feel fun again.

[education-courses]

Top Picks for the Best Courses for Front-End Development in 2025 

In the age of digital-first experiences, the way users interact with apps and websites has never been more important. Companies, from tech startups to global enterprises, are constantly on the lookout for skilled front-end developers who can turn creative designs into functional, engaging interfaces. 

If you're planning to enter tech or transition within it, enrolling in one of the best courses for front end development can set the foundation for a rewarding and future-proof career. 

Let’s break down what front-end development entails, what skills you'll need, and which front end developer best courses can get you there in 2025. 

What Does a Front-End Developer Do? 

Front-end developers are the bridge between design and technology. They take static mockups and breathe life into them using code, ensuring websites and apps are not just visually appealing but also interactive, accessible, and responsive. 

Key responsibilities include: 

Converting UI/UX designs into code 

Ensuring responsiveness across devices 

Improving page load speed and user interactions 

Debugging and maintaining front-end functionality 

Collaborating with back-end teams and designers 

To excel in this role, you’ll need to master a suite of tools and technologies. 

Skills You’ll Learn in a Front-End Development Course 

A good front end developer best course will teach you: 

HTML, CSS, and JavaScript – The core building blocks 

Responsive Design – Using media queries and frameworks like Bootstrap 

JavaScript Frameworks – Such as React, Angular, or Vue.js 

Version Control – Using Git and GitHub 

APIs – Integrating with RESTful services 

Testing Tools – Like Jest or Cypress 

Dev Tools – Chrome DevTools, Postman, VS Code 

More advanced programs also introduce deployment techniques, performance optimization, and accessibility best practices. 

Why Take a Front-End Development Course? 

With self-learning resources widely available, many wonder: why invest in a course? 

Here’s why a structured program still matters: 

Learning Path: Courses guide you from basics to advanced topics in a logical order 

Project Work: Build real-world applications for your portfolio 

Mentorship: Resolve doubts and get code reviews from experienced developers 

Career Services: Resume help, mock interviews, and job connections 

Consistency: Learn without getting overwhelmed by scattered resources 

Top Platforms Offering the Best Courses for Front End Development 

Here’s a curated list of the most career-oriented and practical learning options available in 2025. 

1. NIIT Digital – Full Stack Product Engineering Program (Front-End Focus) 

While designed as a full stack course, NIIT Digital’s program provides a robust front-end foundation ideal for beginners and upskillers alike. 

Why it stands out: 

Covers HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, Git 

Includes live mentor-led sessions and hands-on projects 

Offers access to capstone projects and job support 

Flexible learning schedules with a job-readiness focus 

Aligned with the latest hiring trends in India 

For those serious about entering the job market quickly, NIIT Digital provides one of the best courses for front end development with practical skills and support systems in place. 

2. freeCodeCamp – Front End Development Certification 

A great option for self-learners, this course covers: 

Responsive web design 

JavaScript algorithms 

Front-end libraries like React 

Projects to earn certification 

3. Coursera – Meta Front-End Developer Certificate 

Offered in partnership with Meta (Facebook), this program teaches: 

HTML, CSS, JavaScript 

React and UX principles 

Front-end testing and final project 

Industry-grade training with flexible timelines 

4. Udemy – The Complete Front-End Web Developer Bootcamp 

Popular for affordability, this includes: 

30+ hours of on-demand video 

Real-world exercises 

Lifetime access 

While less structured, it's a good option for budget-conscious learners looking to experiment. 

How to Choose the Right Course for You 

Here’s a quick checklist to help you select the front end developer best course for your goals: 

Platforms like NIIT Digital score high across all these criteria, especially for learners who value guided instruction and career support. 

Career Outcomes After Front-End Courses 

Once you’ve completed a front-end course, you’ll be ready to apply for roles like: 

Front-End Developer 

UI Developer 

Web Developer 

React Developer 

Junior Software Engineer 

Final Thoughts 

Becoming a front-end developer in 2025 is not just about learning to code—it’s about learning to create digital experiences. A high-quality program gives you the edge to stand out in a crowded job market. 

Whether you’re just starting out or reskilling mid-career, investing in one of the best courses for front end development can accelerate your growth and job readiness. 

Platforms like NIIT Digital bring together structure, community, and mentorship—all essential ingredients for success in tech. Choose a course that doesn’t just teach you to build web pages—but to build a career. 

[lawodcom]

Why Helldivers 2 Keeps Crashing And How to Fix It

If you’ve been jumping into Helldivers 2 only to have it crash mid-mission, mid-loading screen, or—worse—right as you're calling down an orbital strike, then yeah, we feel your pain. You're not the only one shouting into the void, "Why does Helldivers 2 keep crashing?" Whether you're on PC or PlayStation 5, this issue has been messing with countless players and turning galactic liberation into a game of tech roulette. In this guide, we're diving into the most common reasons Helldivers 2 crashes, from system compatibility issues and GPU driver drama to corrupted files, background software conflicts, and even problematic game patches. We’ll break down fixes step-by-step, offer pro tips, and help you figure out what’s nuking your game—without nuking your patience. Common Reasons Why Helldivers 2 Keeps Crashing Before diving into solutions, let’s understand what’s causing the chaos. Here are the top culprits: Outdated GPU drivers (especially on NVIDIA and AMD cards) Corrupted or missing game files Conflicts with overlays like Discord, Steam, or GeForce Experience RAM/memory overloads from background apps Unoptimized game patches or updates DirectX or Visual C++ runtime issues Hardware limitations or thermals (CPU/GPU overheating) Fixes for PC Players (Steam) 1. Update Your Graphics Drivers Outdated or buggy GPU drivers are a major crash trigger. Visit the NVIDIA or AMD website Download the latest driver for your card Clean install if necessary (using DDU if needed) 2. Verify Game Files on Steam Corrupted files = instant crash. Right-click Helldivers 2 > Properties > Installed Files > "Verify integrity of game files" 3. Turn Off Overlays Overlays can mess with performance. Disable Steam overlay (Steam > Settings > In-Game) Disable Discord overlay (User Settings > Game Overlay) Exit GeForce Experience while gaming 4. Close Background Apps Apps like Chrome, OBS, or VPNs eat up RAM and can cause stutters or crashes. Use Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) to kill unused programs. 5. Run the Game as Administrator Sometimes permission issues block processes. Right-click game exe > Properties > Compatibility > "Run as administrator" 6. Reinstall Visual C++ and DirectX Runtimes Outdated or corrupted runtimes are sneaky culprits. Download and install the latest Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributables Update DirectX via Microsoft’s official site Fixes for PS5 Players 1. Rebuild Database PS5’s Safe Mode option helps clean up system junk. Turn off PS5 completely Hold power until second beep (enters Safe Mode) Select “Rebuild Database” 2. Check for Game & System Updates Outdated firmware can cause game-breaking bugs. Settings > System > System Software > Update Game tile > Options > Check for Update 3. Delete and Reinstall the Game Corrupted installation = constant crashing. Delete Helldivers 2 Reinstall from your library or disc Optional: Lower Your In-Game Settings (PC) Sometimes the game’s trying to do too much with too little. Try dialing these down: Texture Quality: Medium or Low Shadow Quality: Low V-Sync: Off Disable Ray Tracing This is especially important if your rig is older or running hot. 🔍 Pro Tips to Stay Crash-Free Monitor Temps – Overheating GPUs or CPUs = instant shutdowns. Use tools like HWMonitor or MSI Afterburner Avoid Beta Drivers – Stick to WHQL-certified versions Join the Community – Check Reddit or the official Discord for community-reported fixes and dev updates Backup Saves – Just in case you need to reinstall or reset Report Bugs – Devs can’t fix what they don’t know. Use the official support channels

[softwaretestingtraining]

Top 5 Low-Code/No-Code Test Automation Tools in 2025 | Software Testing Training Institute in Kerala

Automation testing isn’t just for seasoned coders anymore. Thanks to low-code and no-code platforms, QA professionals, manual testers, and even non-tech team members can now build automated tests faster, with minimal or no coding skills.

Whether you're new to testing or a developer looking for speed, this blog will walk you through the top 5 low-code/no-code test automation tools that are making waves in 2025. Let’s simplify testing without compromising quality.

Why Low-Code/No-Code Tools?

Before we dive in, let’s understand why these tools are booming:

Faster delivery: Build automation scripts in minutes, not days.

Less dependency on developers: Even non-coders can participate in QA.

Budget-friendly: Save on hiring specialist automation engineers.

Visual approach: Most tools offer drag-and-drop, record-and-playback, or block-based logic flows.

Now, let’s explore the top players leading the low-code/no-code automation space.

1. Testim (by Tricentis)

🚀 What Makes It Stand Out:

Testim uses AI to stabilize tests and reduce maintenance, which is a major headache in traditional automation. Its smart locators adapt to minor UI changes, making your test suite more reliable.

🛠️ Key Features:

Drag-and-drop editor for quick test creation

AI-powered self-healing tests

Seamless integrations with CI/CD tools

Chrome extension to record flows

Version control and team collaboration

🎯 Best For:

Agile teams needing scalable web app test automation with minimal code.

2. Katalon Studio

🚀 What Makes It Stand Out:

Katalon combines the best of both worlds—low-code for beginners and full-code for pros. Its dual UI lets testers start with visual test creation and gradually shift to scripting when needed.

🛠️ Key Features:

Record-and-playback feature for web, mobile, API, and desktop testing

Built-in test management and reporting

Pre-built templates and reusable test objects

Supports Groovy-based custom scripts

Integrates with JIRA, Jenkins, Slack, etc.

🎯 Best For:

Teams transitioning from manual to automated testing, especially in hybrid tech stacks.

3. Leapwork

🚀 What Makes It Stand Out:

Leapwork is a true no-code platform built with testers in mind. Its flowchart-based automation builder is intuitive, allowing users to map out test scenarios visually—no syntax required.

🛠️ Key Features:

Visual test flow creation with logic blocks

Cross-platform testing: web, desktop, and virtual apps

Centralized dashboard for monitoring and reports

Scalable for enterprise-grade testing

Reusable sub-flows for modularity

🎯 Best For:

Enterprise QA teams seeking robust, secure, and scalable no-code automation.

4. TestSigma

🚀 What Makes It Stand Out:

TestSigma lets you write tests in plain English! It's a cloud-based, AI-driven platform where test cases look almost like spoken instructions. Ideal for functional, mobile, and API testing.

🛠️ Key Features:

Natural Language Processing (NLP)-based test authoring

Supports web, mobile, API, and database testing

Built-in test data management

In-browser execution, no installation needed

Real-time reporting and debugging tools

🎯 Best For:

Cross-functional teams where business analysts, QA, and devs collaborate on automation.

5. Ranorex Studio

🚀 What Makes It Stand Out:

Ranorex is feature-rich and beginner-friendly. With its record-and-replay interface, you can build tests quickly, but it also allows full script editing for those with programming experience.

🛠️ Key Features:

GUI-based testing for desktop, web, and mobile

Drag-and-drop interface with flexible control identification

C# and VB.NET scripting support for advanced users

Smart test reporting with screenshots

Strong debugging capabilities

🎯 Best For:

QA teams handling complex, multi-platform applications.

How to Choose the Right Tool?

All tools listed above are strong contenders, but here’s a quick comparison checklist: CriteriaBest OptionNo-code simplicityLeapworkNLP-based authoringTestSigmaAI-powered stabilityTestimHybrid testing flexibilityKatalon StudioDesktop + mobile + webRanorex Studio

Ask yourself:

Do you want to involve non-technical stakeholders?

Are you testing across multiple platforms?

Do you want AI to reduce test flakiness?

Do you have DevOps pipelines to integrate with?

Your answers will guide your pick.

Future of Low-Code/No-Code Testing

In 2025 and beyond, these platforms will only get smarter:

AI will write better test suggestions based on user behavior

Self-healing tests will become standard

Voice-enabled test creation may emerge

Crowd-sourced testing libraries will speed up test development

With tools becoming more intuitive, testing will shift from being a bottleneck to a team-wide superpower.

Final Thoughts

Low-code and no-code tools are leveling the QA field. Whether you're just starting out or looking to optimize your team’s productivity, these platforms offer a fast-track to reliable, scalable, and maintainable test automation.

If you're looking to master these tools and launch your QA career, consider joining a hands-on, project-driven program at a trusted Software Testing Training Institute in Kerala like Obsqura Zone. Their curriculum includes practical training on top tools like Selenium, Postman, and even AI-powered platforms.

Testing is no longer just about finding bugs—it's about building quality, faster. https://www.obsqurazone.com/

[antimoany]

Browser extensions georg, what are your extensions

i'm using firefox esr. i cannot attest to the functionality of these extensions in any other browser.

here are the extensions that i think are worth sharing:

ublock origin: and ublock origin specifically. a powerful security suite that prevents your browser from loading data from a wide variety of dishonest and unsafe domains.

no-one should use a browser without this or an equally good extension. vital for security, a better first line of defense than your antivirus.

as a delightful bonus, you can also use it to permanently block specific elements as needed.

noscript: javascript blocker with per-domain whitelisting. most people are not willing to maintain whitelists, but this is still very helpful in blacklist mode. i use it in whitelist mode, and store few permanent exceptions.

greasemonkey: allows you to inject javascript into any page, and thus allows you to write your own browser extensions, or install userscripts written by others. if i count each userscript separately, this counts as about fifteen extensions.

stylus: injects css into any page, and thus also allows you to write your own browser extensions, albeit with one specific purpose.

if i visit any website with any amount of regularity, i have probably written one or more userstyles for it. if i count each userstyle separately, this counts as about forty extensions.

i'll stop here and say that if you're serious about security, or if your safety would be harmed by a third-party gaining hold of your browsing data, you should really think twice before installing anything below this line. i cannot promise they are completely secure.

i have a second browser with only those above four bare-minimum extensions for sensitive browsing. you may want to do the same.

cleanlinks: removes tracking, nesting, and obfuscation from most links in most cases. it isn't perfect. cleanurls is a popular alternative. i've tried and failed to create a userscript to replace this.

user-agent switcher: does what it says on the tin. its use as a privacy tool is dubious, but it is useful for getting a site to display a specific version of itself according to your needs, and that is why i have it.

some websites insist they only work in one browser or another (usually, but not always, chrome). this is almost never true. they typically work in all browsers, provided they see the user-agent they're looking for.

i use this most often to get around sites incorrectly telling me my browser is out of date. it isn't, they just check user-agents incorrectly.

if they're looking for chrome specifically, there's a good chance they want to get up to some absolute bullshit that firefox correctly does not allow. the alternative is that the frontend dev likes the small number of chrome-specific css rules which, i'll be honest, simply do not matter.

webdeveloper: a variety of tools that are purportedly for webdevs, but which are honestly very useful for the end-user, too. i rarely need this, but when i do, i am very glad to have it.

buster: a bot that solves captchas for you. i cannot even tell you why, but i really struggle with captchas, especially google's. i will go around and around in a dozen attempts and never pass. i have no idea which disability is to blame, but these things are disgustingly inaccessible. without buster, i would not be able to view anything that is gated behind a captcha.

we have reached a point where a script can solve a captcha in approximately two seconds, and some humans cannot even given an infinite number of attempts.

emoji to english: as-is, exists to provide text transcriptions of emoji characters. i use it as a tool to wrap all emoji characters in an identifiable element which i can then set not to display via a simple userstyle. frankly, it would be convenient if that were an option in the extension, but i can deal with this workaround.

image block x: adds a toolbar button to prevent or enable image loading on demand. my bandwidth is terrible, and i sometimes need this to be able to use the web at all.

recipe filter: renders recipe websites usable.

session manager, which i cannot link to because it apparently no longer exists. it allows me to save discrete browsing sessions with their own tabs, and switch to them or add them to my existing session as needed. very useful for research, webdev, and browser games. there is no agreed-upon alternative, but in searching i did discover those users who jumped to quantum miss it.

reddit enhancement suite: still functional, despite its claims. pair with old reddit redirect for best results.

new xkit, which despite its claims, is still mostly-functional. i use its blacklist heavily.

i used to have many other extensions, but over the years firefox has added their functionality to the basic browser experience. canvasblocker, for example, can now be replaced with resistfingerprinting:TRUE. context-menu interference, for another example, can be resolved by holding shift.

[aisoftwaretesting]

Mobile First Design Testing — How to Guide

What is Mobile First Design?

Mobile First Design is a design strategy that prioritizes the mobile user experience by starting the design process with mobile devices in mind before scaling up to larger screens like tablets and desktops. This approach aligns with the principle of progressive enhancement, where the core functionalities are built for mobile users first, and then additional features are added for larger screens.

In practice, this means designing for the smallest screen sizes first, ensuring that essential content and functionalities are accessible and user-friendly on mobile devices. Once the mobile design is solidified, designers can then enhance the experience for larger screens by adding more complex layouts, interactions, and features.

Why Mobile First?

1. Increasing Mobile Usage

With the proliferation of smartphones, more users access the internet via mobile devices than desktops. Designing with mobile users in mind ensures that the majority of your audience has a seamless experience.

2. Performance Optimization

Mobile devices often have limited processing power and slower internet connections compared to desktops. A mobile-first approach encourages developers to optimize performance, leading to faster load times and improved user satisfaction.

3. Enhanced User Experience

By focusing on the constraints of mobile devices, designers are compelled to prioritize content and functionality, leading to a cleaner and more intuitive user interface.

4. Improved SEO

Search engines like Google prioritize mobile-friendly websites in their rankings. A mobile-first design can positively impact your site’s visibility and search engine performance.

What is Mobile First Design Testing?

Mobile First Design Testing involves evaluating a website or application’s functionality, usability, and performance on mobile devices before testing on larger screens. This testing ensures that the mobile version meets user expectations and performs optimally under various conditions, such as different screen sizes, network speeds, and device capabilities.

Responsive Design Verification: Ensuring that the layout adapts seamlessly to various screen sizes.

Touch Interaction Testing: Validating that touch gestures like tapping, swiping, and pinching work as intended.

Performance Testing: Assessing load times and responsiveness on mobile networks.

Accessibility Testing: Ensuring that the design is usable by individuals with disabilities.

How is Mobile First Testing Different from Traditional Desktop Testing?

AspectMobile First TestingTraditional Desktop Testing

Screen Size Focus on small screens (e.g., smartphones)Focus on larger screens (e.g., desktops)

Interaction Touch-based interactions (tap, swipe)Mouse and keyboard interactions

Performance Constraints Limited processing power and network speeds Generally higher processing power and speeds

Design Approach Progressive enhancement from mobile to desktop Graceful degradation from desktop to mobile

User Context On-the-go usage, varying environments Stationary usage, controlled environments

Mobile-first testing requires consideration of factors unique to mobile devices, such as varying screen sizes, touch interfaces, and network conditions, which are less prominent in desktop testing.

Different Testing Techniques for Mobile First Design

1. Responsive Testing

Ensures that the website or application layout adjusts appropriately across different screen sizes and orientations. Tools like Chrome Dev Tools, Firefox Developer Tools, and online services like Browser Stack can simulate various devices for testing.

2. Cross-Browser Testing

Validates that the application functions consistently across different mobile browsers, such as Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. This testing identifies browser-specific issues that could affect user experience.

3. Touch and Gesture Testing

Evaluates the responsiveness and accuracy of touch interactions, including taps, swipes, and pinch-to-zoom gestures. This testing ensures that interactive elements are appropriately sized and spaced for touch input.

4. Performance Testing

Assesses the application’s load times, responsiveness, and resource usage on mobile devices. Tools like Lighthouse and Web Page Test can simulate mobile network conditions to evaluate performance.

5. Accessibility Testing

Ensures that the application is usable by individuals with disabilities. This includes testing for screen reader compatibility, sufficient color contrast, and keyboard navigability.

6. Usability Testing

Involves observing real users as they interact with the application to identify usability issues and gather feedback. This testing provides insights into user behavior and preferences.

7. Visual Regression Testing

Detects unintended visual changes in the application’s UI by comparing screenshots from different versions. Tools like Percy and GenQE - AI-Powered Quality Engineering & Visual Testing can automate this process.

8. Network Condition Testing

Simulates various network conditions, such as 3G or offline modes, to assess the application’s behavior under different connectivity scenarios.

What to Test in Mobile First Designs?

Layout and Responsiveness: Verify that the layout adapts to different screen sizes and orientations without issues.

Navigation: Ensure that menus and navigation elements are accessible and functional on small screens.

Touch Targets: Confirm that buttons and interactive elements are appropriately sized for touch input.

Content Readability: Check that text is legible without zooming and that images scale correctly.

Performance: Assess load times and responsiveness on various network conditions.

Accessibility: Test for compliance with accessibility standards, such as WCAG.

Forms and Inputs: Validate that form fields are usable and that input types are appropriate for mobile keyboards.

Media Content: Ensure that videos and images load correctly and do not hinder performance.

Error Handling: Test how the application handles errors, such as network failures or invalid inputs.

Setting Up Your Mobile-First Testing Environment

1. Use Real Devices

Testing on actual devices provides the most accurate results. Maintain a diverse set of devices with varying screen sizes, operating systems, and hardware capabilities.

2. Emulators and Simulators

Tools like Android Emulator and iOS Simulator can mimic mobile devices for testing purposes. While not a substitute for real devices, they are useful for initial testing phases.

3. Browser Developer Tools

Modern browsers offer developer tools that can simulate mobile devices. For example, Chrome DevTools allows you to emulate different screen sizes and network conditions.

4. Cloud-Based Testing Platforms

Services like BrowserStack and Sauce Labs provide access to a wide range of devices and browsers for testing. These platforms are valuable for cross-browser and cross-device testing.

5. Automation Tools

Implement automated testing frameworks like Selenium, Appium, or Cypress to streamline repetitive testing tasks and ensure consistency.

6. Performance Testing Tools

Utilize tools like Lighthouse, WebPageTest, and GTmetrix to evaluate performance metrics and identify areas for improvement.

Testing Mobile First Design with GenQE - AI-Powered Quality Engineering & Visual Testing

GenQE - AI-Powered Quality Engineering & Visual Testing is an AI-powered testing platform designed to streamline the mobile-first design testing process. It offers a suite of tools and features to enhance testing efficiency and accuracy.

Key Features of GenQE - AI-Powered Quality Engineering & Visual Testing

AI-Powered Visual Testing: Automatically detects visual discrepancies across different devices and screen sizes.

Cross-Device Testing: Simulates a wide range of devices to ensure consistent user experience.

Performance Monitoring: Provides real-time insights into load times, responsiveness, and resource usage.

Accessibility Checks: Evaluates compliance with accessibility standards and identifies potential issues.

Integration Capabilities: Seamlessly integrates with CI/CD pipelines for continuous testing.

User-Friendly Interface: Offers an intuitive dashboard for managing and analyzing test results.

How to Use GenQE - AI-Powered Quality Engineering & Visual Testing for Mobile First Testing

Set Up Your Project: Create a new project and configure the testing parameters, such as target devices and browsers.

Run Tests: Initiate automated tests to evaluate various aspects of your mobile-first design.

Analyze Results: Review the test reports to identify issues and areas for improvement.

Implement Fixes: Address the identified issues and re-run tests to validate the fixes.

Continuous Integration: Integrate GenQE - AI-Powered Quality Engineering & Visual Testing with your development workflow to ensure ongoing testing and quality assurance.

Conclusion

Adopting a mobile-first design strategy is no longer optional — it’s essential in a world where mobile devices dominate internet usage. Designing and testing with mobile devices as the starting point ensures your product is not only accessible to the widest audience but also optimized for performance, usability, and user satisfaction. Mobile-first design testing goes beyond simply checking if your layout adjusts to smaller screens; it involves thoroughly validating performance under mobile conditions, ensuring touch interactions work smoothly, verifying accessibility, and testing for cross-device and cross-browser consistency.

With the right tools and methodology — such as real device testing, emulators, performance monitoring tools, and AI-powered platforms like GenQE - AI-Powered Quality Engineering & Visual Testing — you can confidently ensure your product delivers a superior mobile experience. This approach not only enhances user engagement and satisfaction but also boosts SEO rankings and overall business performance. Ultimately, mobile-first testing is a foundational step in creating responsive, reliable, and user-centered digital experiences that meet the expectations of modern users.

[testrigtechnologies]

Mastering Cross-Browser Testing with Cypress: Best Practices & Challenges

Ensuring a seamless user experience across different browsers is a critical aspect of modern web development. Web applications may perform optimally in one browser but exhibit inconsistencies in another due to variations in rendering engines, JavaScript execution, and CSS interpretations. To address these challenges, cross-browser testing is essential. Cypress, a widely used automation testing framework, offers robust testing capabilities; however, it has certain limitations in the context of comprehensive cross-browser testing.

This guide provides an in-depth analysis of cross-browser testing with Cypress, highlighting best practices and potential challenges to ensure optimal test execution.

Why Choose Cypress for Cross-Browser Testing?

Cypress differentiates itself from other test automation frameworks through its unique architecture. Unlike Selenium, which operates externally and interacts with browsers remotely, Cypress runs directly within the browser. This results in faster execution and more stable test runs. Below are key advantages of Cypress:

Fast Execution – Cypress eliminates the overhead of external WebDriver communication, ensuring rapid test execution.

Automatic Wait Mechanism – Tests inherently wait for elements to be available, reducing test flakiness.

Enhanced Debugging – Built-in time-traveling and real-time snapshots facilitate detailed test analysis.

Simplified Configuration – No additional browser drivers or extensive setup requirements.

Multi-Browser Compatibility – Supports execution on Chrome, Edge, and Electron, making it a viable option for web application testing.

Implementing Cross-Browser Testing with Cypress

1. Installation and Setup

To initiate Cypress for cross-browser testing, install it within the project:npm install cypress --save-dev

Launch Cypress using:npx cypress open

This command opens the Cypress Test Runner, enabling test execution and configuration.

2. Configuring Cypress for Multi-Browser Support

Cypress facilitates execution on Chrome, Edge, and Electron. The browser can be specified within the cypress.config.js file:

module.exports = { e2e: { setupNodeEvents(on, config) { return config; }, browser: 'chrome', // Modify this to 'edge' or 'electron' as needed }, };

3. Executing Tests in Different Browsers

To run tests in a designated browser, use the following command:

npx cypress run --browser chrome

Replace chrome with edge or electron based on testing requirements. Alternatively, use the interactive Cypress Test Runner to select a browser:

npx cypress open

4. Enhancing Performance with Parallel Execution

Parallel execution significantly optimizes test efficiency, particularly when running tests across multiple browsers. Enable parallel execution using:

npx cypress run --browser chrome --parallel

Note: Parallel execution necessitates integration with Cypress Dashboard, which provides insights into test performance and execution trends.

5. Integrating Cypress into CI/CD Pipelines

Cypress can be incorporated into CI/CD workflows to facilitate automated cross-browser testing. Below is a sample configuration for executing Cypress tests on multiple browsers within a GitHub Actions workflow:

jobs: cypress-test: runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Checkout Repository uses: actions/checkout@v2 - name: Install Dependencies run: npm install - name: Run Cypress Tests on Chrome run: npx cypress run --browser chrome - name: Run Cypress Tests on Edge run: npx cypress run --browser edge

This approach ensures early detection of browser-specific issues in a continuous testing environment.

Limitations of Cypress for Cross-Browser Testing

While Cypress is a powerful testing tool, it presents some limitations in cross-browser testing scenarios:

1. Restricted Browser Support

Cypress currently supports Chrome, Edge, and Electron. While experimental support for Firefox is available, Safari is not supported, which limits testing capabilities for macOS and iOS users.

2. Lack of Native Mobile Browser Testing

Cypress is designed for web applications in desktop environments. It does not provide native support for mobile browsers such as Chrome for Android or Safari for iOS, making it unsuitable for mobile web automation.

3. Limitations with Multi-Domain Testing

Cypress struggles with multi-domain authentication and redirection due to same-origin policy restrictions. This poses challenges when testing applications requiring cross-domain interactions.

4. No Support for Internet Explorer

Unlike Selenium, which supports legacy browsers, Cypress does not provide compatibility with Internet Explorer (IE 11 or older), making it unsuitable for organizations still relying on legacy systems.

Best Practices for Effective Cross-Browser Testing with Cypress

To maximize the effectiveness of cross-browser testing with Cypress, consider implementing the following best practices:

Leverage Feature Flags – Account for browser-specific behaviors using feature flags to enable conditional test execution.

Regularly Update Cypress – Keep Cypress updated to leverage the latest enhancements and improved browser support.

Utilize Cypress Plugins – Enhance functionality with plugins such as cypress-cucumber-preprocessor for behavior-driven development (BDD).

Run Tests in Headless Mode – Optimize execution speed by running Cypress in headless mode:

npx cypress run --headless --browser chrome

Conclusion

Cypress is a powerful automation framework that offers a streamlined approach to cross-browser testing, delivering high-speed execution and robust debugging capabilities. However, its limitations, such as restricted browser support and challenges with multi-domain authentication, must be considered. By following best practices and integrating Cypress into CI/CD pipelines, organizations can enhance the efficiency and reliability of their cross-browser testing efforts.

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