In Web Development, you wouldn’t find a developer who hasn’t used any debugging tool. Because, these tools are the major aids to locate bugs and defects in a website and they make it easier for you to fix it.
Debugging tools are mostly available as add-ons from their respective browsers. They help in validating your CSS and HTML, preview your page layout at various resolutions, and also offer a ruler (measuring in pixels) to aid in positioning the elements. You can inspect any element you wish to and view the css of any webpage inside out and even edit your code and preview the effect.You might be quite familiar with Mozilla’s debugging tool – Firebug.
Here is a list of other debugging tools in some major browsers:
- IE Developer Toolbar: is an add-on for Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7
- Opera DragonFly: Add on from Opera
- Safari Web Inspector
Some of us are quite used to firebug and sometimes we even wish that firebug was available in other browsers too. Well, here is something to interest you. Firebug can be invoked in any browser using javascript. It is called Firebug Lite. It inherits most of the features of the actual Firebug. Here are some screen shots from IE6:
It’s quite simple to use Firebug Lite. If you want to use it online, you can insert the following code in your site.
<script type='text/javascript' src='http://getfirebug.com/releases/lite/1.2/firebug-lite-compressed.js'></script>
To use firebug lite offline, you need to download firebug-lite.js file (it is available in FireBug Lite.js). Then insert the code given above in your site’s head tag and just edit the src alone to contain the location of the js file. After completing this, firebug lite can be used in any browser. For more information, follow these links: Opera DragonFly , Safari Web Inspector and IE DevBar. You can find more information on Firebug Lite here: More FireBug Lite info.
Happy Debugging !!
