
Firefox – tons of tools for web developers - Garbage
http://hacks.mozilla.org/2011/11/firefox-tons-of-tools-for-web-developers/
======
jroseattle
Our team has basically abandoned Firefox in favor of Chrome. Our team consists
of front-end, HTML/JS/CSS types as well as server-side devs. I'm surprised,
but every member of the team independently has punted on Firefox. For some, it
was the extensions. For others, it was the RAM consumption.

With the new release schedule, it seems every time I would open FF with a new
version to pull, some extension no longer works. It's purely anecdotal, but it
was enough to annoy the bejeezus out of us that we simply switched over to
Chrome.

~~~
jeremyswank
if you use [add-on compatibility reporter]([https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/add-on-compat...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/add-on-compatibility-reporter/)) then you can tell firefox to
use 'incompatible' extensions anyway. most of the time they work just fine.

~~~
jroseattle
Good to know, thank you.

Of course, there's the potential incompatibility of the incompatibility
reporter, but I digress.

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elisee
I have found the Chrome dev tools to be much better usability-wise than
anything Firebug had to offer. I also find it suspicious that Firebug is so
heavy in terms of performance & memory, compared to the always-enabled chrome
dev tools.

Anyway it's good to see Mozilla is investing in this area by integrating tools
right in the browser. Keep it up!

~~~
enobrev
I generally agree. The primary thing I find myself going back to Firebug for
is debugging ajax calls, since I get the fully expandable request / response
info inline along with console output. Chromium can show that an ajax call was
made inline, but the link goes to the Network tab, and unfortunately doesn't
auto-select the referenced call.

~~~
losvedir
Holy crap, I think Chrome can do that, too.

I upvoted you because I agreed; AJAX was what I went back to Firefox for.

However, a different comment in this thread mentioned the Chrome Developer
Tools preferences (a little gears icon in the bottom right corner), which I'd
never noticed before.

Sure enough, clicking it revealed the options 1) Log XMLHttpRequests and
2)Preserve log upon navigation. Checking those (which were unchecked by
default) gave a HUGE amount of info on the AJAX calls that I just tested.

Maybe it's not what you're talking about, but it was a big find for me.

~~~
enobrev
That's exactly what I was referring to.

You can set it to add a line to the log when ajax calls are made, and
fortunately a trace for where they are made from, but you have to go to the
Network tab and click on the actual request to see the details. Clicking the
link within the console output provides will take you to the tab, but not the
request.

It's close - but not quite there. I prefer having it all in one place, but
just having the link lead to the actual Request on the Network tab would be
great.

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jarofgreen
Interesting/worrying comment at the end about the future of Firebug alleging
there is only one developer working on it and Mozilla have all but abandoned
it. Anyone able to confirm/deny/comment on the matter?

~~~
AndrewDucker
Was it a Mozilla project in the first place? I thought it was just a very
popular third-party addon?

~~~
subbu
Though it wasn't a Mozilla project, it was written by Joe Hewitt, one of the
original Firefox creators.

~~~
AndrewDucker
Thank you!

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mhartl
It's a shame there's no good in-browser HTML validator (for any browser, so
far as I can tell). HTML Validator used to be perfect, but Firefox started
changing too rapidly for it to work consistently, and the current version only
works on Windows (!).

Does anyone know of a browser/plugin combination that validates pages
automatically (preferably configurable to run only on localhost)? The original
HTML Validator was perfect, with a small icon in the bottom right of the
screen indicating valid or invalid. Total Validator is OK, but it's not in-
page, so that (for example) it's very difficult to validate pages behind a
login wall.

~~~
gchucky
I'm in the same boat as you. My computer at work is a Mac, and I was unable to
use the HTML Validator plugin. The solution is to go to the plugin's forums -
[http://www.htmlpedia.org/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=11&sid=e9...](http://www.htmlpedia.org/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=11&sid=e9e977bdf5cf2f4614809ffb6833fbcb).
One of the guys there has been really good in taking the origin plugin and
compiling it for other operating systems.

~~~
mhartl
Hmm... It doesn't seem to work. I left off a closing li tag and it didn't
complain. C'est dommage.

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rch
Using Dragonfly in Opera makes my life pretty darn easy. It would be very
difficult to convince me to switch to either FF or Chrome at this point.

~~~
gaoshan
I'm intrigued by Dragonfly. Why do you like it better than what is available
in Chrome? Basically, what are its selling points?

~~~
rch
Unfortunately, I am totally unfamiliar with any of the alternatives to
Dragonfly. And the selling points would read like the feature list of any
debugger. All I can really say is that with Dragonfly, I don't mind working
with JavaScript anymore -- it is tightly integrated with the browser and does
its job well.

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prez
Wow, the CSS Reloader add-on is awesome! This could've save me a couple of
hours if I had it earlier.

<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/css-reloader/>

~~~
oops
I've been using LiveReload+Guard for this on Rails projects. It'll reload CSS
as soon as the file changes on disk without any keypress required. If
necessary it'll reload the whole page. It's very handy.

There's a 2.x version that's a standalone OS X app and handles compiling a
bunch of things like LESS, Sass, etc. but I haven't used it.

1.x <https://github.com/mockko/livereload> 2.x <http://livereload.com>

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Jasber
Somewhat related, LiveReload (<http://livereload.com/>) has made the biggest
impact in the way I develop recently.

It feels a lot like the way notch developed with hot swapping during Lundum
Dare.

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sleighboy
It's not Firefox-specific, but if inspecting and modifying HTTP
requests/responses is what you want to do you should try Charles (
<http://www.charlesproxy.com/> ).

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mweibel
So will the new Dev. Tools replace the functionality of Firebug or not?

~~~
joewalker
I'm not sure that anyone has a definative answer to that question right now.
The new tools are interesting because they do things in a different way, but
there is a lot they don't do, so we're supporting both.

It's possible that one day Firebug will be totally superceeded. It's possible
that both tools will have separate audiences for some time. It's possible that
the new native tools will be a total flop (although I have a vested interest
in making sure that doesn't happen!)

~~~
AndrewDucker
Bringing the new functionality into Firefox, where it can be more exhaustively
slimmed down and the primary team is responsible for it makes sense to me.

Heck, if the basic functionality is there then Firebug can be written to take
advantage of those APIs, which would be a win all round.

~~~
mweibel
Regarding #2: Yeah, that would be really great. Could also lead to less memory
consumed

~~~
JanOdvarko
I am hard working to fix all Firebug memory leaks (and did fix some of them
recently). What I really need is a simple scenario showing that Firebug leaks.
That helps me a lot!

Any input is appreciated, please post here:
<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/firebug>

Honza

~~~
mkopinsky
How am I to tell whether leaks are from Firefox or Firebug? What I know is
that after a full day developing Firefox will use 800MB of RAM, and the only
way to get rid of that is to close the entire process. I use Firebug heavily
and I know that _something_ is leaking somewhere.

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c4urself
A bunch of these simply don't work in later releases of Firefox

~~~
throwaway64
They all appear compatible in Firefox 8.x, can you be more specific?

edit: why have i been down voted, i took the time, and specifically checked :/

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waitwhat
It wasn't me but... Don't overthink a single downvote: the up and down arrows
are awfully close, and it's easy to misclick, particularly on a tablet.

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czervik
The only thing I open Firefox for anymore is SQLite Manager. What really made
me fall in love with Chrome developer tools is using them to write Chrome
extensions.

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brianbreslin
if you were to install all of those plugins/add-ons simultaneously your
computer would grind to a halt from RAM usage.

~~~
demetris
I would be surprised if that were the case.

I made a clean Firefox profile and installed and enabled everything in the
selection except the Firebug addons and the HTML validator, which does not
support Linux. That is, 47 extensions in total. The machine is an old box from
2004 with an AMD64 3000+ processor and 2 gigabytes of RAM, running Debian Sid
64bit. In this old box, with all 47 extensions enabled, Firefox starts in less
than 5 seconds and takes about 175 MB of memory.

But even if installing 47 extensions brought Firefox to a halt, why would you
need to install all of them? This is simply a collection of recommended
extensions, not a set that no developer can do without.

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nestlequ1k
For fun I messed around with Firefox 8 with Firebug. Crashed in less than 5
min. Lot of work is still ahead...

Chrome has Firefox beat

