RenderSquared is a web renderer that's designed to test pages in Internet Explorer and Gecko-based clients without the need to open multiple browser windows. Since it's geared towards web development rather than casual use, it's not intended to be a direct replacement for a common Web browser. The idea is to view Internet Explorer's output in the top pane, and Gecko's output in the bottom.
Some interesting features:
- The two engines work in sync with each other. That is, when you click on a link in one engine's panel, the opposite panel will be forwarded to the same URL with no intervention required.
- RenderSquared can take screenshots of its own window in JPEG and PNG formats, and output the files to the working directory denoted by the date and time. Support is planned (and visible in the File menu, though not implemented yet) to e-mail screenshots with one click.
- The Validation menu allows you to send the page through the W3C's markup validator and link checker. Links open in the system default browser, not RenderSquared.
- The two rendering panes are equal in height when you start up the application. You can change it around later, as in, make the Gecko pane larger than the IE pane or vice-versa. In the near future, the app will automatically save the pane heights and window size.
I'm starting the versioning at 0.8, which signifies that RenderSquared is pre-release software. It has a number of issues so far, such as the scrollbars on the Gecko control locking up every so often, and contains a number of partially-implemented and completely unimplemented features, such as a decent print dialog or screenshot attachment mailing. I had originally been planning on including the Safari engine, though I can't seem to get WebKit's COM control working from within Visual Studio.
RenderSquared is a VB.NET 2.0 application, so you will need to download the .NET Framework 2.0 if you don't already have it. To achieve Gecko functionality, the package also contains a full Gecko Runtime Environment pulled from today (Sept. 21)'s SeaMonkey nightly, though it does not feature the SeaMonkey frontend. A note to users of x64 and Itanium processors: though the .NET Framework is designed to provide for native code on 32-bit and 64-bit platforms, embedding 64-bit controls in .NET Framework applications remains largely untested, therefore RenderSquared will run in 32-bit x86 mode in order to load and run the GRE.
You can download the official RenderSquared 0.8 package from here as a .zip, 8.1mb (expands to 21mb when installed). If you experience a crash on startup, run the included [tt]installl.cmd[/tt] and try again; if you still get a crash, run [tt]install_force.cmd[/tt] and try again. If RenderSquared continues to crash even after running both scripts, post about it here and I'll see what I can do to help you out.
The GPL'ed VB.NET 2.0 source is available here, in .tar.gz format (32kb), with the sources to RS.exe and the Interop DLLs. For those that don't have Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Basic 2005 Express, a build script [tt]build.cmd[/tt] is included that should build the project with the MSBuild utility included with the .NET Framework runtime.
Finally, this is not a substitute for or descendant of Donzilla, nor does it aim to be; rather, it is a completely different product altogether.
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.2 x64; en-US; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070913 BonEcho/2.0.0.6 (mmoy CE K8C-X04)
