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05.10.07
Top Firefox Extensions For Web Designers
 By
Dustin Brewer
There are a lot of extensions out there, most of them are unnecessary because of their limited worth to more advanced users.
The big downfall for some of the extensions is that they are a full toolbar and take up entirely too much screen real estate for their total worth as a tool. Just like a Swiss Army Knife you have to be able to conceal the smaller tools until you are ready to use them-- hence Swiss Army making it pocket worthy and not made for a lanyard.
There of course is a difference between developers and designers but for the sake of these extensions I'm going to assume that everyone is both, these Firefox extensions should be of use to you whether you consider yourself in either category but may serve less use for some then others. Without further ado, may I present the Top 10 Firefox Extensions for Web Designers and Web Developers.
#1 Web Developer
Type: Toolbar
This comes loaded with tools for validating your CSS, XHTML, Javascript and various other standards compliance tests. It gives you various different rendering options and utilities for seeing how a web site is made and layout. This extension is also useful for disabling various components of your web site or other web sites to see how well they work with or without the component you need to disable. This utility is a must for anyone from the hobbyist web designer/web developer to the experienced web designer.
#2 MeasureIt
Type: Status bar
This extensions is the one that I use the most and comes in handy for all kinds of things when I am making a web site, mostly because after I get the basic layout created I realize that I want to add another component into the web site or I want to see if something fits here or there and this Firefox extension stays down in the bottom of the status bar in Firefox and allows me to easily measure any element or section of a web site.
#3 IE Tab
Type: Context menu
As much as we all hate to admit it this comes in very handy at times because Internet Explorer is unfortunately used by so many people around the world we don't have any choice but to make sure our web sites look correctly in the browser. I don't know about the rest of you but I would rather leave the browser closed as often as possible, this extension is a necessary evil so because of this it is useful to that end.
#4 HTML Validator
Type: Status bar
I only wish this one was more useful then the IE Tab extension so I could just make sure I was standards compliant, I often find myself making sure I'm IE compliant more so then standards compliant- with W3C XHTML standards at least you have a guideline to follow on what compliant code should be structured like. This also opens up the source of the web site and shows you the specific area with its location and a short description on what the markup is incorrect.
Continue reading this article.
About the Author:
Dustin Brewer is a web and graphic designer with a passionate interest
in everything that is technology. He currently is the webmaster and
editor for tech filter, a technology news web site, as well as a writer
for Gadgetell-- a similar web site about technology news with a strong
focus on new gadgets.
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