Must Have Extensions For Firefox

firefox-logo.jpgAs many well know, I am a huge advocate for Firefox. As a user, I like it for a few reasons; its consistent across platforms, tabbed browsing, fairly secure, skinable, and last but not least…extensibile.

The extensibility of the god of browsers is where things really shine for me as a developer…a web application developer. There are two that I use religiously for Javascript debugging, DOM inspecting, CSS tweaking, source viewing, Ajax calls, etc. Here they are. Get them. Use them. You’ll crap your pants.

Web Developer – get it here.

web_developer-1.jpgThe Web Developer extension adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web developer tools. It is designed for Firefox, Flock, Mozilla and Seamonkey, and will run on any platform that these browsers support including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Firebug – get it here.

firebug-2.jpgFireBug is a new tool that aids with debugging Javascript, DHTML, and Ajax. It is like a combination of the Javascript Console, DOM Inspector, and a command line Javascript interpreter.

Other fun features:

* XMLHttpRequest Spy – Ever wonder what all them newfangled Ajax websites are up to? Watch the requests fly by in the console!

* One web page, one console – Tired of slogging through a zillion errors in the JavaScript Console trying to find the one you want? The FireBug console is built into the bottom of the browser, and only shows you errors and log messages that came from the page you’re looking at.

* JavaScript Error Status Bar Indicator – It’s a sin that Firefox doesn’t include this by default, like IE does. When there is an error in the page, the status bar will let you know with a big red blob.

* Logging for web pages – Sick and tired of “alert debugging”? Jealous of all your C programmer buddies with their fancy printf? Now you can log text and objects to the FireBug console from any web page. See my website for more info on this.

[etc]

And obviously…if you don’t have FireFox (tsk tsk), get it here:


Comments

11 responses to “Must Have Extensions For Firefox”

  1. […] One of my must have extensions for firefox has a new version out! Firebug, if you don’t already know, is an Ajax/layout/javascript troubleshooter and is extremely well developed. In version 0.4, Firebug steps beyond the bounds of being a troubleshooter and can now be considered a full fledged debugger. Its new features include: […]

  2. […] Because Flock is based off of Firefox, many of the extension run for it! So you can still have the must haves. I definately wouldn’t be using Flock otherwise. […]

  3. Yes, Firebug is much better than Vankman (JS debugger).

  4. […] While at The Ajax Experience I noticed a tool that a few of the speakers made use of that was missing from my arsenal. The tool? JavaScript Shell. […]

  5. […] is a nifty little tool to add to your web development toolkit! Yahoo has developed a nifty website speed analysis Firebug extension. Yep. Not […]

  6. Cynthia Avatar
    Cynthia

    my firefox keeps saying update failed and you have to say ok and then it starts help

  7. […] a world of FireFox and its beautiful extensions of web-development power, Internet Explorer has been a horrid browser to develop/debug your […]

  8. […] Firefox Extensions (including Firebug) […]

  9. […] Firefox Extensions (including Firebug) […]

  10. JavaScript Error Status Bar Indicator – It’s a sin that Firefox doesn’t include this by default

    I think that as well as a JavaScript error status indicator, all modern browsers should also display an XHTML/HTML error status indicator (i.e. where the page claims to be XHTML/HTML but contains errors).

  11. I can’t really say that the “blob” that firebug gives is all that big.

    I think it’s a blatant omission that this tool has no option to display a POPUP when a Javascript error occurs. Like it is now, they’re most easily missed. IE has that even built-in.