I often get asked what kind of tools we use in web development. Our usual response covers the full range of common development tools: Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Photoshop, Flash, TextPad, and the classic notepad application found on every windows-based computer since 1992.
Over the last few years, we’ve begun to rely on tools that are not true applications, but rather extensions and plug-ins for other applications. Since the release of FireFox, this open-source browser has become a phenominal tool for customization.
Plugin’s and extensions enhance your browsers abilities. It simplifies tasks, helps you organize information, view information in a number of very cool ways. For a web developer, it centralizes many of the smaller tools I’ve used in the past into one simple interface.
Among those tools is Web Developer 1.1.5.
So what is it, and as a realtor, do I need it? The simple answer is it’s really a tool for web developers, and no, you don’t need to install it. But it is the one tool I use daily when working on a website.
The Web Developer extension adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web developer tools. It is designed for Firefox, Flock and Seamonkey, and will run on any platform that these browsers support including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
Designed by Chris Pederick (site), this open source tool has become the tool of choice by many developers when analyzing the physical characteristics of a website. It allows us to play with anyones website, alter code, change design elements – all from within a classic browser window. It’s as much a research tool, as it is a developers tool.
For the average user, it gives you insite into how a web site was built; but for the more experienced user it can help you save time when answering common questions – how large is that image on my website?, where did I put that image?, and why is the link broken?
When reviewing a new web site (or checking out your competitors sites), Web Developer can help you see how it would work in various browser sizes, how it validates, or best of all – what are they doing behind the scenes to improve thier rankings. Are they using <alt> and <title> tags?
I’m only scraping the surface for the range of tools that Web Developer offers, and in future posts I’ll offer more about certain elements which I use daily.
Filed under: Tools of the Trade | Tagged: Browser, Extensions, FireFox, Tools
[...] FireFox as FF has a wide array of tools to help me debug, or to learn about how a site operates. Web Developer is my current personal favourite. I test in IE6 & 7, and always do a final check in Safari (from Apple). I now have to add [...]