Take Your Web Design Capabilities to the Next Level with Firebug

You’re only as good as your last website design – while it is not imposed, this should be the mantra all web designers should live by. In order to constantly elevate your web design skills, you need to look around, check out masterfully crafted websites and attempt to equal these sites if not outdo them.

One way of doing this is to use tools and one of these highly useful tools is the browser extension called Firebug. At the very basic, Firebug allows you to view how the HTML components of a specific webpage work as well as enable you to try and see how your site will look like using a particular design without modifying the underlying codes.

Firebug packs a lot of features which can benefit web designers. Here are some of them.

Make CSS Changes Instantly

Wouldn’t it be great to make changes on any webpage’s CSS real time? This is just one of the most useful web design benefits of Firebug. The CSS tabs tell you everything you need about the visual elements on your site and if you think there is something of, you can make the changes right there and then and see the revised version on an instant.

All you need to do is to highlight the HTML component that you want to alter and Firebug will automatically highlight the CSS tied to that element. The presentation is very clear. CSS codes that have been replaced are crossed out. Further, you can add or disable CSS values and properties, preview colors, typography and graphics or images and even learn with Firebug’s comprehensive list of CSS keywords which you can access simply using the up and down arrow keys while you are modifying a CSS property.

View and Modify HTML Real Time

On JavaScript-based sites, it’s quite difficult to view the HTML source. Firebug solves this common web design problem by providing web designers with a dedicated tab that shows the HTML source and how it really looks like. From here, you can modify these HTML elements and you can see the changes on the page as you type. Sounds like magic? Not quite. Additionally, Firebug enables web designers to insert and take out HTML components, ID or class and put in provisional inline styles.

Improve Performance with JavaScript Debugger

Firebug also features a highly effective and easy to use JavaScript debugger which allows you to locate scripts that you want to debug, suspend execution, measure performance and identify bottlenecks. It works just like any other debugger (with options to Step Out, Step Into, Step Over and Continue) plus other features meant to make the process of web design more streamlined and efficient. There’s also an option that enables you to “automatically break into the JavaScript debugger” if there’s an error. Isn’t that convenient?

Allowing Designers to Stay on Top of their Game

The discipline of web design is constantly evolving and great websites are springing out of the nowhere every now and then. Keeping that in mind, web designer need all the tools (like Firebug) they can get to ensure that they are at par with current trends, as well as to streamline the process and make quick changes to cope with the dynamic demands of internet marketing.

Do you have other website design tricks up your sleeves?