Or why different browsers show the same thing differently.

Miraz Jordan has written an informative article in her Browsers series. From “Browser notes 04: rendering engines — – Technology, Macs, the Internet and other matters.” on Tikouka:

Each web browser uses its own rendering engine. Some browsers share engines and differentiate themselves from other browsers that use the same engine by offering other features. This is like a washing machine: the Fisher and Paykel models (presumably) all use the same motor, but some models are front-loading, others top-loading, some take bigger loads than others, and so on.

Miraz then goes on to list the engines and which browsers use them.

Why is this important? Miraz explains that, too.

On a related note, I recently reformatted the post footer for each article on this site to prevent word wrap when the footer appeared in different browsers. I’m a Firefox user and the footer appeared in a single line in Firefox on Mac OS and Windows. But when I viewed the same pages in Safari, the text was a bit bigger, thus forcing the line to wrap in an undesirable place. The best way to fix an undesirable line break is to insert a desirable line break before it, and that’s what I did. But Miraz’s article reminds me why I should be testing my pages in multiple browsers on multiple platforms — as I always recommend to readers. I need to start practicing what I preach.