By Peter Bell

Great Firefox Add ins

Posted At : January 14, 2008 4:07 AM | Posted By : Peter Bell
Related Categories: Misc
Tom Mollerus just pointed out a couple of must-have little Firefox extensions for developers. MeasureIt gives great sizing information, and ColorZilla provides an eyedropper in the browser for quickly getting colors from a page.

I'm assuming everyone who does CSS has Firebug already.

Any other "must have's" that you'd recommend?

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Definately "Web Developer" by Chris Pederick:
http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/

That plug-in is probably the main reason Firefox became my default browser =-)
# Posted By James Buckingham | 1/14/08 4:34 AM
Good point - that is indeed a good one.
# Posted By Peter Bell | 1/14/08 4:52 AM
I find LiveHTTP Headers invaluable...

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/382...
# Posted By James Marshall | 1/14/08 5:20 AM
As well as the ones already mentioned like firebug and the web dev toolbar, I use the following:

HTML Validator - Validates the HTML (internally) and gives details in the source view.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/249...

IE Tab - So much easier to test a site in two browsers when all you have to do is flick between two tabs.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/141...

Save as Image - Lazy alternative to print screen for taking screenshots of sites
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/340...

Selenium IDE - For recording activity in Firefox for web application testing scripts :)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/207...

View Cookies - Handy for seeing what cookies are being sent and changing their values for testing
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/315...
# Posted By David Boyer | 1/14/08 5:21 AM
I have both MeasureIt and ColorZilla and have probably used each just a handful of times in the last 2 years or so. For me they fall into the 'useful tool to have at your disposal on the odd occasion'. Must-haves are:
Adblock
Web Developer
Duplicate Tab
HTML Validator
IE Tab (saves you having to even use IE for testing)
SmoothWheel (does better mouse wheel scrolling than Windows default)
# Posted By duncan | 1/14/08 6:23 AM
A few I use all the time...

Aardvark. Great for inspecting pages and tearing them apart. http://karmatics.com/aardvark/
Screen grab! Screenshot the whole page.
Mouse Gestures. Couldn't live without them :)
View Source Chart. View the rendered source instead of the page source.
Adblock Plus.

Also, not an addon as such, but a useful tool for Firefox (or any browser for that fact), Spurl.net is handy for taking your bookmarks wherever you go.
# Posted By George Bridgeman | 1/14/08 6:58 AM
A lot of good stuff mentioned, I use many of those. I also use one called ScrapBook which I find invaluable for taking notes about all kinds of stuff without leaving the browser.
# Posted By Thomas Messier | 1/14/08 8:11 AM
- WebDeveloper - by far the one I use the most - it also includes a ruler to measure screen objects (so no need for MeasureIt).
- AutoFill Forms - a quick Alt+J will fill out forms like here for the blog comments - a super timesaver!
- del.icio.us - for storing bookmarks
- Google Notebook - for storing everything else
- Faviconize tab - for reducing tabs to icons
- Tab mix plus - for tab stuff - primarily locking tabs so I can't close them (Gmail, reader,etc)
- Xpather - for getting those Xpath elements
- RTM (Remember the Milk) for Gmail plugin - todo list in Gmail!
# Posted By Jim Priest | 1/14/08 9:23 AM
I highly recommend JSView if you need quick access to viewing the CSS and JS files that are being used on a website. I use it if I see something neat laid out in CSS or done in JS and want to see how it was achieved.
# Posted By Javier Julio | 1/14/08 11:15 AM
I used to have MeasureIt and ColorZilla installed... but I switched over to FastStone Capture. It has a magnifier, rule, color picker, screen capture, multiple monitor support and a bunch of other features that work in "all" programs (because sometimes I needed to measure something that wasn't embedded in Firefox.)

Check it out... I use it daily and it's also on my portable USB drive:
http://www.faststone.org/FSCaptureDetail.htm
# Posted By James Moberg | 1/14/08 11:20 AM
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