It is rare, I think, to find a new version of software so amazingly different that you want to shout about it, let alone a browser add-on!
But Firebug 1.5 is the exception to the rule!
Download it and restart Firefox, go ahead, I’ll wait…
Ok, ready? Well crack open your new Firebug!
Console
- Notice the new Persist button? That keeps your session of Firebug open during hard page refreshes! Awesome for comparing page rendering during different page loads.
HTML
- Inspect an element, then click the Edit button. Firebug now gives you a far easier edit panel, more like the Web Developer add-on’s Edit HTML option. And you can go as high in the DOM as the
<body>tag, which gives you access to the entire generated HTML in your document! - Also, in the right panel, notice the Computed tab across the top? That gives you the “end result” CSS of any element, after any animation, etc. might have taken place!
CSS
- It is SO much easier to edit CSS now!
- Gone are the tabs representing each CSS file, replaced with a drop-down similar to how the Scripts tab has long functioned, and allows you to edit the CSS in an environment more like an IDE.
- And the greatest improvement in the CSS panel? It now appears to handle
@importproperly!! (Previously the panel would order the CSS tabs incorrectly, listing them in the order they appear in the DOM, with@importitems appearing after the CSS it was imported ahead of…) - Still missing, sadly, is the ability to Save the CSS once you have completed editing it, like Web Developer allows.
- Also, when editing, it would be nice to have line numbers that coincide with the line numbers from the HTML Inspect Element screen.
Script & DOM
- The release notes reference items from these sections, but the dramatic improvement was not apparent to me.
Net
- Has the same Persist button as Console, which retains your previous Network activity even during hard refreshes! Once refreshed, your previous Net activities are grouped together in an expandable item above the current Net activity.
- It would be handy, I think, if, in addition to the page name, the previous activities group had a timestamp on it, to let you know when that happened…
So, this update is WELL worth the download and restart, HECK of a job, Firebug team!
Happy Firebugging,
Atg