Blog / Random thoughts and musings.
Firefox
I’d like to take a few minutes to talk about web browsers. I’m pretty committed to Firefox. Internet Explorer is just not a feasible option for a variety of reasons. I’ve tried Safari and don’t like it. Opera seems pretty good and feels faster on my Mac than Firefox, but I don’t have the motivation to research whether it will do everything I want (yet).
Since I do a fair amount of web development these days, I have a number of Firefox add-ons installed, so I thought I’d make a list.
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Aardvark Lets you delete or isolate page elements. Great for cleaning up a page prior to printing. |
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Firebug Indispensable web development tool. Edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. |
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Google Toolbar Has many features, but I use it to access my bookmarks from any computer. |
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Greasemonkey User scripting language to customize the way web pages look and function. I use it to make the Blogger.com post editor much larger. |
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Live HTTP Headers View HTTP transactions while a page is loading. |
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Mouse Gestures Execute common browser commands (like “back”) by gesturing with the mouse. |
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View Source Chart Draws a color-coded chart of a web page’s source code and structure. |
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Web Developer Adds a menu and toolbar with various web development tools. |
I also use the GrApple(UNO) custom theme to make Firefox blend in better with the other programs on my Mac.
inspira
August 9, 2007Thanks for the Firebug tip!
Pablo
August 10, 2007A couple of other plug-ins I find useful.
Stylish: Lets you persist a style change on a particular page/domain. ou can see changes in real time without having to reload (although certain changes in certain orders confuse it so reloading is a good idea), but it lets you try out some style changes on a page without having to go to the server and start fiddling.
Firebug also lets you do this but the firebug CSS UI Is very rigid and not useful for making large sets of changes.
YSlow: This is OK. It’s not great, not in my top 10, but it’s useful for pointing out certain things to improve page load time and other performance benefits.