My Firefox Extension Favorites

My Must Haves:

• Web Developer
• Firebug
• Tab Mix Plus
• View Source Chart
• IE Tab

For Convenience/Fun:

• Context Highlighting
• Cooliris Previews
• del.icio.us Bookmarks
• Download Statusbar
• FireShot
• Split Browser

Web Developer

I really do not know what I did before I found this tool. It allows me to pick apart sites and find out what is making them tick. Here is a small taste test of my favorite features:

• View CSS (Ctrl+Shift+C) — Opens the css code in a new window/tab for you to inspect
• Disable Styles (Ctrl+Shift+S)
• View Style Information (Ctrl+Shift+Y) — Use your mouse to highlight different elements on the page and then click on them to see all their style information
• Validate HTML (Ctrl+Shift+H)
• Validate CSS
• Edit HTML — This will open an html editor frame in your browser so that you can edit the html and the page automatically refreshes with your changes
• Edit CSS — Same as with the HTML
• Display Forms
• Outline Frame, Tables, Headings, Elements, etc…

Click here to discover the rest for yourself.

Firebug

Another developer tool that I can’t live without. F12 opens Firebug.

You can inspect elements and view the Console, HTML, CSS, Script, DOM, NET and a page Layout Diagram.

The highlighting in firebug is very helpful in gathering an understanding of the structure of the sites. Rather than searching through the source for tags and lines of code, you can simply mouseover elements and the element source code will show up with highlighting in the firebug frame.

Click here to discover the rest for yourself.

Tab Mix Plus

This extension will handle all of your tab customization needs. You can easily spend 15 minutes making adjustments into your Tab Mix Plus Options (window shown to the right). A few changes I made include:

• Setting the maximum width of a tab so I can fit more tabs in a row
• Selecting the number of rows to which tabs can expand so they do not get hidden in a drop down button
• Customizing what happens when I click on a tab (Double-Click: rename the tab, Ctrl+Click: duplicate the tab, Alt+Click: lock the tab) etc…
• Adjust how my tabs open, load, close

Click here to discover the rest for yourself.

View Source Chart

This is a very simple extension that will make viewing the source code of a site a much more enjoyable experience!

The chart is formatted with indents, outlines and color coding based on tags. It is really something you need to see for yourself [Snapshots].

Click here to discover the rest for yourself.

IE Tab

This extension does exactly what it says. It will allow you to view your page as it would appear in Internet Explorer without ever leaving Firefox. This is a great feature for those anti-IE developers who need to be able to see how the majority of the world will view their site.

Click here to discover the rest for yourself.

Context Highlighting

This is a great feature for those who find themselves constantly searching pages for specific words. All you need to do is highlight a word with your mouse and then right-click and select highlight. What sets this extension aside from your typical CTRL+F search is that you can highlight as many words as you want, as long as you hold down the CTRL key before you highlight the word.

Click here to discover the rest for yourself.

Cooliris Previews

I love this extension, but I usually have it disabled because it slows down Firefox so much. However when I find myself doing a lot of Google searching/research I’ll usually enable it. Cooliris allows you to get a sneak peak at a web page simply by hovering your mouse over the link. The user can also make several adjustments to how Cooliris functions.

Click here to discover the rest for yourself.

del.icio.us Bookmarks

A great extension for users who rely heavily on their bookmarks and also find themselves browsing from different computers.

del.icio.us Bookmarks allows you to store/synchronize your bookmarks online so you never have to be separated from them again.

Click here to discover the rest for yourself.

Download Statusbar

A quick and easy install that eliminates the separate download window from opening. Instead, it all happens at the foot of the browsers so there are no more interruptions.

Click here to discover the rest for yourself.

FireShot

A great extension for screenshot-happy people such as myself. This is a free alternative to other screenshot software that allows you to capture the visible portion of the screen, or the entire website. The image will then open in the Fireshot editor where you can make all sorts of modifications and additions to it. The images can then be saved as PNG, JPEG, or BMP. You can also choose to open the images in your editor of choice.

Click here to discover the rest for yourself.

Split Browser

Another very handy tool that I would use constantly if it did not slow down Firefox. Split Browser allows you to view multiple tabs at once, either side-by-side or one on top of the other. If you combine this extension with the IE tab extension you can easily compare how your site looks in Firefox and IE.

Click here to discover the rest for yourself.