Viewport For Mac

Viewport is a streamlined OS X app that is designed to make it as easy as possible for you to design and test responsive websites for a large number of devices, with different screen sizes and resolutions.

Viewport’s looks are pretty similar to what you are used to founding on a normal web browser and consequently, you get a top address bar, two back and forward buttons on the upper left side, and, in the place where a normal bookmark bar should be, you will find the window bar.

The similarities with usual web browsers end here though, as Viewport true nature is displayed with the help of its three buttons on the upper right side of its main window. The two merged buttons enable you to view and detect breakpoints while the third one enables you to enter the testing mode, record current breakpoints, and take screenshots of open breakpoints.

In a nutshell, Viewport enables you to set multiple viewports with fixed dimensions, take full webpage screenshots, and demo your website and get recordings of how the layouts adapt to each device, among others.

Also noteworthy are Viewport’s two features that enable you to automatically detect breakpoints and another one that makes it possible for you to record any user’s reaction and comments on your website design using the Mac’s iSight camera or the FaceTime camera from the mobile device in question.

Unfortunately, during our tests we have found that Viewport suffers from multiple problems and glitches. The most obvious and annoying one is the fact that once you have entered an address, the backspace button won’t work, thus, erasing text is quite difficult. In order to get around this problem, you will require to select the entire web address and use the SPACE button in order to delete it.

And that’s not all: certain websites have had some problems loading while others just failed to load at all, the app remaining stubbornly stuck more than once. Last but not least, when we were almost reaching the end of our testing and after a couple of restarts, the Viewport application failed to start at all, and, thus, we were required to delete its preferences files in order to “resuscitate” it.

Taking all things into consideration, two conclusions can be drawn based on our tests. The first one is the fact that Viewport stacks the right amount of features that could potentially make it a very useful tool for users who want to develop and test responsive websites. The second one is that in its current development stage, the app comes with too many bugs and issues to be considered a productivity booster when testing and developing websites.