[Web4lib] Re: new to list: questions

[Gimon, Charles A]

I'll just mention briefly that the Javascript console in Firefox is
pretty sweet--and part of the standard install. 

--Charles Gimon
  Web Coordinator
  Minneapolis Public Library


-----Original Message-----
From: innopac-bounces at innopacusers.org
[mailto:innopac-bounces at innopacusers.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Welch
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 1:18 PM
To: innopac at innopacusers.org; PONSLM at ucmail.uc.edu
Subject: Re: new to list: questions


Welcome, Lisa!

One of the things I rely on heavily here for opac changes is Firefox's
Web Developer's toolbar. If you don't currently use Firefox in your page
testing, I recommend you get it for the development features alone (the
toolbar doesn't come with Firefox by default; you'll have to select
Tools | Extensions and click on the "Get more extensions" link. Search
for "web developer").

A couple of the toolbar's features I'm particularly attached to:

-Edit CSS on the fly, with your stylesheet displayed in a sidebar next
to your page. Change a style attribute and instantly see how it changes
your page. You don't need to save each stylesheet change, so your actual
stylesheet is not affected until you want it to be. This is particularly
nice for dynamic pages, which you can't [easily] replicate on your local
machine to make style changes. The time you'll save not uploading your
stylesheet with every minor tweak will be well worth it. (Once you do
save stylesheet changes, of course, you'll need to view the page in IE
to make sure there are no surprises.)

-You can display ID and Class details for any page, which show up as
little tooltip-like boxes near the areas to which they apply. If you
want to change the look of a page area, use this feature to quickly see
what style is attached to that area. Beats scanning through source code.

Other useful Firefox extensions include a color picker, which lets you
move your mouse over colors on a page to see the hexidecimal and RGB
color values; and a URL checker that quickly scans and tests all links
on a given page.

Anyway, I can't say enough good things about how Firefox integrates
useful tools for web developers, so I'll stop now.

Andrew Welch
Sr. Library Systems Technician
Aurora Public Library
Aurora, CO 80247
303/739-6796