Firefox Add-Ons for Web Developers

Firefox Add-on’s are small extensions that add new functionality to Mozilla Firefox. They can add new features, toolbars, and are completely customizable.

It is in a developers interest to peruse Firefox’s “Developer Tools” and “Website Integration” add-on categories to find extensions which fit your work style: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/

TO INSTALL: Click the link, wait a moment until you can click the “Install Now” button that pops up, wait for it to download, and restart your browser.

TO REMOVE: If it’s a toolbar, you can hide them under View > Toolbars, un-checking (selecting) Web Developer, for example. To remove it all together, select Tools > Extensions, selecting the extension and pressing Uninstall on the bottom left.

Colorzilla – Advanced Eyedropper, ColorPicker, Page Zoomer, and other goodies.

HTML Validator – Tidy for FireFox! Highly recommended for web developers. Let’s you check your page’s validation by doing a View / Page Source.

MeasureIt – Provides a ruler to measure the width and height (in pixels) of any element on a webpage.

View Formatted Source – Displays CSS being applied to each element. Great for debugging.

View Source Chart – Tame tables and containers. Great for debugging.

IE Tab and/or IE View":https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/35/ add-ons to emulate IE functionality in Firefox.

Web Developer (see below)

Web Developer – For web developers and programmers. Useful functions include:

1. Disable > Disable JavaScript. This can reveal what we deliver, or don’t, for the 1.5% who have JavaScript off.
2. Cookies. With the video player, you can see how it breaks down if cookies are turned off.
3. CSS. To have a truly accessible site, turning off the CSS should show a fairly logical structure. Or not.
4. Resize. You can check how it looks at 800×600 even if your monitor has a larger resolution, and how the Gateway vs.. Sustainability compare for the < 10% who have 800×600.
5. Tools. Something to consider for setting a standard: valid HTML, CSS, feeds, and Section 508/WAI accessibility. This is a tedious process, on a programming end, but it’s a professional step to make it check out with web accessibility standards — a step beyond if it just “works” in IE/Firefox.