10 Add-Ons You Have to Know About For Google Chrome. Useful Firefox Add-Ons for Designers and Developers. One of the many compelling reasons why Mozilla Firefox is by far the most used browser by web developers and designers is it’s variety of Add-Ons that come free, can be easily integrated and used right from the browser. Mozilla has a complete section for all kinds of Add-Ons available at Firefox Add-Ons page. There are some must have Add-Ons that every web developer should have no matter what. Then there are a few essential Add-Ons for web masters to monitor and optimize their web pages and then there are other "icing on the cake" Add-Ons that you will love to play with.
Starting with the essential Web Developer Add-Ons, here is the list: 1. This is definitely a prized possession for every web developer. 2. The name says it all. 3. FireBug is yet another must have for web developers to monitor the performance of each element of their webpages live within the browser. 4. 5. 6. The name says it all. 7. 8. This is yet another Ad-On that is targeted for Firebug users. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. Setting up an extension development environment - MDC. This article gives suggestions on how to set up your Mozilla application for extension development. Unless otherwise specified, these suggestions apply to both Firefox and Thunderbird as well as SeaMonkey version 2.0 and above.
Overview Create a development user profile to run your development firefox session; with special development preferences in about:config. Install some Firefox development extensions to your dev profile. Edit files in the extensions folder of your profile and restart the application with the dev profile. Development profile To avoid performance degradation from development-related prefs and extensions, and to avoid losing your personal data, you can use a separate profile for development work. You can run two instances of Thunderbird or Firefox at the same time by using separate profiles and starting the application with the -no-remote parameter. On Ubuntu (and many other Linux distributions): /usr/bin/firefox -no-remote -P dev On some other distributions of Linux/Unix: Extensions - MDC. Modify and extend Mozilla applications Add-ons add new functionality to Gecko-based applications such as Firefox, SeaMonkey, and Thunderbird.
There are two main types of add-on: Extensions add new features to the application, while Themes modify the application's user interface. Add-ons can greatly affect the behavior of the application that hosts them. We've developed a set of guidelines to help ensure that they provide a good experience to users. These guidelines apply for all sorts of add-ons, whether they are hosted at addons.mozilla.org or not. Extensions Extensions add new functionality to Mozilla applications such as Firefox and Thunderbird. There are three different techniques you can use to build extensions: Add-on SDK-based extensions, manually bootstrapped restartless extensions, and legacy extensions. Add-on SDK extensions Extensions built using a set of high-level JavaScript APIs, which don't require a browser restart to install.
WebExtensions Debugging Recommended practices. Extension Packaging - MDC. There are three different techniques you can use to build extensions: Add-on SDK-based extensions, manually bootstrapped restartless extensions, and overlay extensions. Add-on SDK extensions Develop restartless extensions using a set of high-level JavaScript APIs.
Restartless extensions Develop extensions that don't require a browser restart. Overlay extensions Develop traditional extensions using a XUL overlay. Extensions are a form of Installable Bundle which can be downloaded and installed by a user, or provided pre-packaged with an application or by an external program. Every extension must provide an install.rdf file which contains metadata about the extension, such as its unique ID, version, author, and compatibility information. Note: Starting in Gecko 2.0, XPI files are no longer unpacked when extensions are installed. Making an extension XPI An XPI (XPInstall) file is simply a ZIP file containing the extension files, with the install.rdf file at the root of the ZIP.