I’ll be honest: over the last 10 days, I’ve learned more about the Acid 2 Test than I ever wanted to know. If you want to do the same, you might start with Acid 2: The Guided Tour.

The short version is that part of Acid 2 is a test for the way a browser handles an <object> element when the data attribute references a URL that returns an HTTP status code of 404. A number of caching rules, mod_rewrite rules and redirects all collided to create a problem with our 404. The cached version of our 404 page was returning an HTTP status of 200. As you might expect, this basically makes the test useless.

Acid 2 was broken. Now it is not. Carry on.

Whereas Acid2 tested static HTML and CSS, Acid3 will focus on ECMAScript and DOM — the dynamic side of the Web. While it will include a few rendering tests to make things look interesting, the core of the test will be 100 scripting subtests.

And that is where you can contribute! Ian has compiled 84 of the 100 scripts but is seeking 16 additional tests. If you’re up to the challenge, read the criteria, create your test, and submit it — within the next five days!

As with Acid2, the Web Standards Project will play host to Acid3… so stay tuned for the final test, and the play-by-play on the browsers’ progress!

This doesn’t necessarily mean that IE8 has fixed all its float oddities, or its hasLayout hilarities. But what it does mean is that there is another browser war, and Microsoft did decide to come.

Added 20 December 2007: Markus Mielke of the Internet Explorer team confirms “HasLayout will be history with IE8“. Exciting times…

(This post translated into Polish.)

I’ve only just installed it on Windows XP, but it has frozen once and crashed once already. There are complaints of blurry fonts and security bugs. It’s not rendering the Acid2 test correctly. (In fact, it’s not rendering the WaSP site correctly either. I assume the same is true on the Mac, but can someone verify?)

Don’t forget to send in your bug reports via the WebKit bug reporting form or the browser itself (Help > Report Bugs to Apple).

1. The image changes when you scroll: Not a bug. This is part of the
   test’s checking of fixed positioning.
2. The image changes when you resize the window such that the text in the becomes jagged when you zoom in. It should not; just like the text, it should remain smooth.
3. The image breaks dramatically if you enable “Fit to Width” mode: This is a standards compliance bug, but it is by design. Fit to Width works by ignoring the specs. In this case, however, it shouldn’t need to change anything, and is therefore IMHO a bug; but it is not something that affects whether the browser complies to the test or not since anything that happens in “Fit to Width” mode is done with the understanding that it will probably violate the specs.
4. The image breaks dramatically if you enable “Small Screen” mode: Same as “Fit to Width” mode, but more so.
5. The image breaks if you change any of the user rendering preferences (e.g. colours, fonts): Not a bug. If you change the preferences, then you are changing how you want the test to look. Tests should only be tested with all the preferences set to their initial values.
6. The eyes go orange if you view the test zoomed in or zoomed out: This is a bug. The image should get bigger as you zoom in, but it should not change colour. Another bug is that the nose becomes jagged when you zoom in. It should not; just like the text, it should remain smooth.
7. The nose goes blue if you hover it: Not a bug. This is part of the test.
8. The eyes disappear and show red if you disable images then reenable them: This is a bug. The eyes should disappear (and say “ERROR”, if I’m not mistaken) when you disable images, but when you reenable them, they should return to the normal rendering.

So in conclusion: There are some standards compliance bugs (6 and 8 above), they are both exposed by the more advanced features that Opera has compared to other browsers. There are also a couple of minor UI bugs (2, 3, 4), but they don’t affect the WaSP’s mission.

An additional note from Håkon Lie points out that “When taking the test, you should use the default settings of the browser you are testing. Changing the zoom level, minimum font
size, applying a fit-to-width algorithm, or making other changes may alter the rendition of the Acid2 page without this constituting a failure in compliance.”

• OS and version
• Screen resolution settings
• Does the test resolve on refresh?

If you can do a screen grab of your results as well, and pop ‘em up on a server somewhere and provide the URL, that’d be great too.

“Some people thought Acid2 would be easy for Opera since we were involved in shaping the test. Not so. Acid2 rightfully exposed many bugs in Opera and we have squashed them, one by one.”

The next challenge for Opera? “Getting that smiley face on phones” Lie says.

There’s also mumblings regarding an Acid3 test or suite, this would be authored by a collaborative group including representatives from major browser and software developers.

Congratulations, guys! Nice work.

there has been no officially released browser that passes the test

I’m thrilled to say that that’s no longer the case — we have a winner!

With today’s release of Mac OS X 10.4.3, Apple’s Safari RSS (version 2.0.2/416.12) is the first (publicly-released, non-beta, non-preview) browser to successfully pass the Acid2 test.

On behalf of the Web Standards Project, congratulations to everyone who contributed to Safari and WebKit, and thanks for the hard work! We look forward to the day when Safari isn’t the only browser that can make this claim.

Jon S. von Tetzchner, co-founder and CEO of Opera Software, writes:

“When our rendering engine gets it right, you can expect to see the smiley face on handheld devices and home media terminals as well.”

Opera Software’s advancing influence in the mobile space means a very good future for the implementation of Web standards within mobile phones and related devices.

For more information on Opera’s progress with the acid2 test, please see the acid2 progress thread on the My Opera Forums. While Opera isn’t doing a step-by-step report, they are posting their progress at least once a month along with a PNG image of the acid2 rendering as it looks at that point in their process.