Boyzoid's Blog & Stuff

If you are doing any kind of JavaScript, especially AJAX, development and you are not using the FireBug plugin for FireFox, shame on you.

I have been using FireBug for quite a while and today I learned about a nifty new feature (Thanks Doug!).  I was having issues with an AJAX call where a ColdFusion error was being returned. If you right-click the entry with the GET, you can select 'Open in new tab' and FireBug will make the HTTP request in a new tab so you can see any error messages more clearly, rather than having to decipher the HTML returned.

Sweet!

I have been a faithful user of the Web Developer Toolbar  for Firefox for quite sometime.  I will admit, I don't even tap a fraction of its potential.  I typically only use it to edit the CSS of a page where I am still creating or editing the layout.  For those who might not know, the Web Developer Toolbar lets you edit the CSS of any page, and renders the changes you make to the page.  It does not save the changes to the file (now that would be both cool and dangerous), but you can copy and paste any changes into the real CSS file.

Today, I was told about 2 nifty little features I did not know existed.

1. 'Display Element Information' - This is available on the 'Information' menu or, by default, by pressing ctrl+shift+f.  You can then mouse over different parts of the page and see information about the page, such as: the type of element (<td>, <p>, <div>, etc..), and attributes of the tag, any children and the 'ancestors'.  Very cool.
2. 'View Style Information- - This is available  on the 'CSS' menu or, by default, pressing ctrl+shif+y.  You can then click on any element and any CSS specific to the element you clicked will open in a new tab.  Also very cool.

Both of these will likely save me a lot of time when creating templates, or trouble shooting CSS issues.

I love FireFox.  I have loved it since I first laid eyes on its beautiful tabbed browsing back when version 1 was still in beta.  Since then, I have found many more reasons to love it.  I happened on another one, by mistake, yesterday.

I was troubleshooting an application, and needed to modify some JavaScript.  To make sure the changes I made were actually doing what I wanted, I needed to refresh the page, then view the source, a real pain in the ass. 

During one round of 'change code -> save ->go to browser -> refresh page -> view source', I alt+tabbed to the wrong window, and instead of looking at the page in FireFox, I was looking at the 'View Source' window.  Since I had gotten into a rhythm, I had hit F5, before I realized I was in the wrong window.  To my surprise, the code in the 'View Source' window refreshed, and showed me the result of the updated code.

I am in awe.  I no longer need to keep opening 'View Source' window after 'View Source' window when changes I make to my code are not viewable in a regular browser window. I love when FireFox makes my job easier.

 I know...I know...I need to update my FireFox extensions, especially the Homeland Security one.

First, to all of those who reported that it is not working in FF version 1.05, thank you, and I appologize for not getting back to you sooner.

Getting my extensions up to date and working on the latest version of FireFox is ow on my 'To Do' List (and pretty close to the top).  I will post here when the extensions have bene updated.

 So...I got my copy of CFMX 7 Web Application Constructin Kit about a wek ago.  I have been leafing through it when I have some spare time.  Anyone else notice the screen shots which show FireFox being used?

FireFox 1.0.2 was released today.  It incldues a fix for a bug that makes users vulnerable to a buffer overflow in GIF image processing. Get it here.

For years my father would refer to me as a 'walking encyclopedia of useless information'...a while ago I discovered a web site for those like me.  HowStuffWorks.com is chock full of completly useless, yet entertaining information.

Today I discovered that they devoted an article to my favorite web browser, FireFox.  Check it out.

Kudos to the Mozilla group for this Easter egg.

Type about:mozilla into the address bar in FireFox.

Over the past few weeks, I have been tracking traffic to the web page used by my Homeland Security Threat Level Firefox extension. Some of the information is pretty interesting.

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