How to test applications written in JavaScript

Anyone who has tried to build a mobile application using JavaScript has been in a situation where they have tested their application as much as you can in your desktop browser but once you get it on your phone it doesnt work like its suppose to.

Well someone has tried that situation so many times that they finally did something about it. Introducing "Ripple" an extension to Chrome that allows you to test your web-app under a wide range of supported platforms. Once you select a platform you can setup what kind of device you want it it emulate. Say you want to test your web-app on an iPhone simply select that as well the orientation of the screen (portrait/landscape).

Your application is now being shown emulated on an iPhone. From here you have a bunch of tools at your disposal.

• Accelerometer - Send input to your application from the emulated accelerometer, you could tell it, it's being tilted sideways and should adapt to landscape mode instead for instance. 
• Geo Location - Does your application use input from the GPS? You can also send coordinates among other geo info to it.
• Storage - Need to store something on the phone? Using the key/value storage you can do this as well.

Ripple also supports phonegap and could be used to test your application before compiling it to a real app on Android or iOS. For a list which parts of the phonegap API Ripple supports see this site. 

The only downside to Ripple is that it doesn't work with file system paths, so you need to set up a web server to use it. (more info here)

Since the Ripple homepage is remarkably empty of screenshots i have made one for you. It's the mobile twitter site running in phonegap on an iPhone

Screenshot of Twitter Mobile running in ripple

Ripple homepage: Ripple

Installing ripple: Installing Ripple