Introduction
For those of you that don’t know, there is a range of tools aimed at testing responsive websites. They are called “Responsive testing tools”. By far the best looking is MobileTest.me. It’s a tool I created more than 10 years ago, long before responsive testing was possible in a browser.
The idea behind this tool is very simple. You select a device. Type a website URL. And voila! You can see how your website looks on this specific device.
While the majority of its users are developers who want to test the websites they are making, there are more uses for MobileTest.me. For example, since it’s a web app, you can send the link to the test to a colleague or client. Therefore it’s a great way to demonstrate your work to customers.
The need for change
Unfortunately as it was created many many years ago (back in good old 2011) the codebase became quite dated. The major problem however was the app’s inability to support secure connections (https). Therefore it lost lots of SEO juice despite the fact that it’s got lots of inbound links.
Also people who visited the site were greeted with a very hostile message that this website might steal your passwords etc. Of course the reason for not supporting https was purely technical. You had to be able to test localhost links. That is, links to websites that you create on your local computer.
The development process
In order to get away from the antiquated PHP framework I was using before, I had to resort to the reason the project was created in the first place. It was created as a way to showcase what can be done with pure frontend coding (aka HTML, CSS, JavaScript) without any backend server scripting or databases.
And indeed the end result has no database connectivity or backend business logic. It’s a pure JavaScript SPA (Single Page Application). The entire codebase is about 600 lines of code split across HTML, CSS and JS. The reborn version of MobileTest.me was created over the course of a week as a side project, mostly at night.
There are three “pages” in the app. The phone selector, the website selector and the test page. The JavaScript purl library is used to parse the active URL and determine which step should be shown. A small JS function runs the test itself and presents the result in the browser.
Future plans
Another problem I had while trying to monetize the app was the endless horde of bots. The database got huge shortly as thousands of bots auto clicked every part of the app. I plan on implementing the best bot protection on earth. A credit card form!
I plan on keeping the cost the same. $9.99/month. However it would be great to also add a yearly plan for $99/year. Does it sound expensive for a small niche tool? I believe so. But I believe that if you get the value off a tool, the cost of two cups of coffee is self-explanatory.
The next step is to add many new devices which were in use in the pro plan. And then some more. Although it’s a responsive testing tool and what really matters is dimensions over looks, it would still be great if people are able to present their websites in the latest and greatest.
Final words
Working on an old, semi-abandoned project again feels like meeting a very old friend for a cup of coffee. You got so much catching up to do!
Now that you know all about it, why not give it a try and see what it’s all about?