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15 Helpful In-Browser Web Development Tools

smashingmagazine.com — In this article, we explore some of the most popular and useful in-browser Web development tools.

Who dugg this? Made popular Nov 19, 2008

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msaleem Nov 18, 2008

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50 Comments

Sparticuz, on 11/18/2008, -1/+19Another extension I find useful is HTML Validator: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/249

Quick glance to see if your writing valid (x)html
nyde, on 11/19/2008, -2/+13Dugg 4 Firebug.
wheezy360, on 11/19/2008, -0/+7Now if only there were a plug-in to see if you're writing valid English.
fabkebab, on 11/19/2008, -0/+5If one was developing a javascript website, is there an actual IDE to use? I look at all these utilities, and it seems like an IDE is what is needed (perhaps something that builds upon the debugging/code viewer capabilities of firebug) - any suggestions?
tempusrob, on 11/19/2008, -0/+4I keep two FF profiles ... one for normal browsing, the other for development. I keep a couple in both profiles (Colorzilla and Web Developer Toolbar), but stuff like Live HTTP Headers, Firebug, and HTML validation stay in the other profile.
inactive, on 11/19/2008, -0/+4A programming article? On Digg?!
cddict1, on 11/19/2008, -0/+3Thanks for sharing sparticuz.
CaptainLando, on 11/19/2008, -1/+4I usually don't like adding extra weight to Firefox, but some of these are worthwhile if used correctly.
tempusrob, on 11/19/2008, -0/+3http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?fa ...

MS provides VHD's of XP w/ IE6 (and, optionally, IE7 and IE8). Not a particularly lightweight solution, but damn if it's not handy.
yagotmeseruchi, on 11/19/2008, -0/+3Yagotta include XRAY!:

http://www.westciv.com/xray/
Meep3D, on 11/19/2008, -0/+3WTF has compile time got to do with Firefox' render speed?
merdok, on 11/19/2008, -1/+3Fangs looks to be a useful extension, I'l definately be giving that a try, not enough attention is paid to accessibility standards, to me at least they seem to be much for important than conforming to W3C standards.
AmazingAndrex, on 11/19/2008, -0/+2Not to start a browser argument here, but I thought others would like to know that pressing Ctrl + Alt + V in Opera 9.5+ automatically uploads it to the W3C.org validator. Very helpful. I also find Opera's "Apply Changes" button when viewing source code to be very helpful too.
michaelphw, on 11/19/2008, -1/+3Firebug is my best friend... such a saviour.
NavySeal, on 11/19/2008, -1/+3Love FireFTP!
I think I might check out that screencapture program
Meep3D, on 11/19/2008, -0/+2I've found Firebug can cripple performance - it's useful, but worth bearing in mind if you have performance problems.
evilrevolution, on 11/19/2008, -0/+2MeasureIt is also handy, I used to use PrtSc and mspaint
Gavagai80, on 11/19/2008, -0/+2Install a linux distro on the side or in a virtual machine, and run IE6 in IEs4linux.
MrMcGuire, on 11/19/2008, -0/+2I'm going to try some of these at work later. I had such a bad day debugging IE yesterday. I wanted to end my life.
shawns, on 11/19/2008, -0/+1And here I was thinking Firebug and Web Developer were the best I could do. Nice list!
Meep3D, on 11/19/2008, -0/+1How about this...
http://browsers.evolt.org/?ie/32bit/standalone

IE6 standalone browsers. Doesn't work on Vista though.
TheMandibleClaw, on 11/19/2008, -0/+1try gadwin printscreen
godsdead, on 11/19/2008, -0/+1I would love, and have been waiting for an IE6 emulator for such a long time now, thats whats really needed!
inactive, on 11/19/2008, -0/+1Dugg for something you already knew about.....
theadvinci, on 11/28/2008, -0/+1Useful list. I'm using some of them, but I'm going to add YSlow to my toolbox
onejerusalem, on 11/19/2008, -1/+2Great list of tools - great work. Anything not IE is good!
captaindigger, on 11/19/2008, -1/+2Real web developers don't developing anything in Internet Explorer. They only spend countless hours building their pages for it.
findhostcoupons, on 03/22/2009, -0/+1I am very thankful to you for providing these wonderful tools! Thumb up!
imakecomments, on 11/19/2008, -1/+2Also, not enough attention is paid to spelling standards.
http://www.d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y.com/
lpferris, on 11/19/2008, -0/+1I agree with you, merdok, but to be fair if you're coding valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional, you're about 90% to being properly accessible anyway.

Not sure why you're getting Dugg down...
jebaird, on 11/19/2008, -0/+1Total Validator is a extension among other things can check your spelling of your content and element names/ids

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/231 ...
fabkebab, on 11/20/2008, -0/+1I use VS all the time - but (if I am not mistaken) it doesnt have support for all the javascript stuff that firebug is used for
jrizzo, on 11/19/2008, -0/+1..waiting for reply from XKCD...
inactive, on 11/19/2008, -0/+1Thanks man!!!!!
netneutrality, on 11/19/2008, -0/+1I used to battle with a whole bunch of unwieldy or otherwise crappy FTP programs before I found FireFTP. It's truly a super useful extension, and it's right where I want it (in the browser).
(It used to conflict a bit with the Alexa traffic toolbar though, thanks to an Alexa bug; not sure if it still does because I scrapped the Alexa toolbar, but meh.)
djnack, on 11/19/2008, -0/+1Great post. I've been looking for a list of must haves.
AmazingAndrex, on 11/19/2008, -0/+1Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition: http://www.microsoft.com/express/vwd/

As far as programming is concerned, Visual Studio is one of the best IDEs no matter how you use it.
Drewsky, on 11/19/2008, -0/+1Awesome post. I love FireFTP, Firebug, and ColorZilla. Especially ColorZilla saves time and not to do a screen capture and use Photoshop to find a specific color using the eyedropper tool.
emberjohn, on 11/25/2008, -0/+1Firebug Rules..
AmazingAndrex, on 11/19/2008, -0/+1Wow I'm a nerd, I thought &amusing; was an encoded character there for a second.
dotkom, on 11/19/2008, -0/+0Great extensions :)
jrizzo, on 11/19/2008, -1/+1IE Tab. Thread closed.
fonzdecool, on 11/20/2008, -0/+0Great Information. Even though i am not a programmer, this info will help me to start using it through FF to test out the different add-ons.
labaha71, on 09/04/2009, -0/+0
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merdok, on 11/24/2008, -0/+0It will be my atrocious typos :)
jrizzo, on 11/19/2008, -2/+1If you have performance problems with firefox, you should probably get a new machine or quit developing...'cus compile time is gonna suck!
diggater, on 11/19/2008, -1/+0Informative & amusing; I have a lot of reading to do!
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