Firefox Addons

As a web developer I often need a “fix”. No, not caffeine. Ok, well maybe I don’t need “the fix” but some of the web sites I inherit do or a new feature being implemented may have some conflicts so I need to do some debugging in order for the site to work correctly and in many browser types and versions.  Alas, I have a little army of grunt software that gets me from point a to point z much more quickly than sys.outs or alert messages. I’ve saved numerous hours using the following set of Firefox Plugins. I’ll briefly outline them and provide a link. My favorite is Firebug and YSlow is pretty damn cool also!

Firebug: You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. Website http://getfirebug.com/

FireFTP: FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers. Website: http://fireftp.mozdev.org/

FoxyProxy: FoxyProxy is a set of proxy management tools for Firefox, Thunderbird, Seamonkey, and Songbird: Website: http://foxyproxy.mozdev.org/

GreaseMonkey: Allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript. Website: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748

IE Tab: This is a great tool for web developers, since you can easily see how your web page displayed in IE with just one click and then switch back to Firefox. Website: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419

Screengrab: It will capture what you can see in the window, the entire page, just a selection, a particular frame… basically it saves webpages as images – either to a file, or to the clipboard. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1146

Web Developer Toolbar: The Web Developer extension adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools. Website: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60

YSlow: YSlow analyzes web pages and suggests ways to improve their performance based on a set of rules for high performance web pages. Website: http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/

Below is a view of the FireBug console.

Firebug Plugin

If you’re an avid FireFox (FF) user and you sometimes (ok often) find yourself asking yourself what a definition of a word is or to clarify a words ambiguous use in an odd context you may want to try Answer’s plug-in for FF. After you install the plug-in (a very simple process) you just need to use the ALT+Left Mouse click a word of a web page and the definition appears instantly as you can see in my snap-shot.

FireFox Plug-in
Other Answer Downloads