Quick Tip for iOS Browser Development

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Last week, when preparing for the XPages Mobile Controls session at BLUG, Eamon Muldoon introduced me to a useful tip when testing on iOS. The problem is that many browsers such as Firefox and Safari use, by default, webkit styling, so use Android stylesheets.

But Safari has an option to change the user agent.

The first step is to enable the Develop menu. Go to EditPreferences. Then on the Advanced tab, check Show Develop menu in menu bar.

This will enable the Develop menu. From here you can go to the User Agent submenu and change the user agent to e.g. iPhone, iPad, or choose Other… to set up a custom user agent.

User Agent menu

Now you can use the browser to see the iOS stylesheets and simulate functionalityfor a specific user agent.

2 thoughts on “Quick Tip for iOS Browser Development”

  1. Great tip !

    i even downloaded Safari for my Win PC 🙂
    Is it correct to think that for Android simulation, one needs to set up Firefox User Agent ?

    1. I’ve not tried that. It seems that after changing the user agent in Safari that I can’t get Android look and feel in Firefox again. It looks like it’s changing something globally, but I haven’t been able to confirm that. There is a Firefox add-on to set user agent, but I haven’t used it yet.

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