Mozilla Developers Toolbar

[David]

Where the heck has the Mozilla Developers Toolbar gone? Since they redesigned their site, I haven't been able to find it. Am I going mad or is that site just good on the outside and crap in the middle?

[francis]

Do you mean the Web Developer's Toolbar? If so, that's an extension written by a guy called Chris Pederick and only available on his site (http://www.chrispederick.com/work/firefox/webdeveloper/).

A lot of extensions are available at Mozdev.org (http://mozdev.org/), although loads of developers use their own sites to host their own extensions. There's also the Extension Room (http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/) at Mozdev - I'm not sure quite why they have a subdomain for this - it seems a pointless exercise - why not just bung everything under one URL.

[David]

Yes, that's the one - thanks Francis. Last time I got it, I downloaded it from the Moz site. I agree, all those sub-domains are a pain and last night when I was looking for it, some of them were extremely slow.

Although I think the front-end to their new site is a big improvement on the previous one, the site structure and navigation are a mess. It's difficult to find stuff even when you know what you're looking for.

Searching for "web developer toolbar" gives you the Firefox version. Clicking on "other versions" just results in an error. Ugh! These guys really ought to get their act together.

I know this is open source but...

[francis]

Firefox web developer's toolbar 1.0 (http://chrispederick.com/work/webdeveloper/) is out and it's got loads of new features including an incredible ruler widget that is going to be really useful. There's also "edit (local) html" and tonnes more "view" options under 'Information'. For those who need it, there's also a new Cookies option that alows you to create cookies on the fly. Not sure if "linerize page" was there before, but that's really handy for accessibility testing/proving points for table-based layouts. Try it on this forum for example...

This is such an essential extension for anyone developing a site.

[David]

A great tool just got better - thanks for the heads up Francis.