I’m a really big fan of Firefox. I use it daily for simple web browsing and I use it to when I’m going through the process of developing websites. However, as a Linux enthusiast, I really miss the flexibility of Konqueror. It’s an incredibly fast browser with a lot of extremely useful features; especially for web developers. It also has a really good rendering engine. It’s so good that both Apple and Google have put it to work for their own respective web browsers. However, the rendering engine isn’t the only reason Konqueror is so great, it has some nice features that other browsers lack. This article will discuss a simple process of implementing one of my favorite features of Konuqueror in Firefox, as well as list my favorite Firefox plugins.
One feature that really helps with managing projects is something Konqueror calls “view profiles”. Loading a view profile will bring up a session of websites that you’re working on or viewing. You can have multiple sessions saved, which is extremely helpful if you’re managing several projects at once. Basically these view profiles are just glorified bookmarks, but they’re extremely useful and can help increase productivity for web developers.
How to get view profiles in Firefox
Emulating this feature in Firefox is surprisingly easy. Open your project in Firefox and utilize as many tabs as are necessary. Navigate to the bookmark menu, and select “bookmark all tabs”. Name you’re new folder and you’re done. Next time you need to open your project, just navigate to the folder in the bookmark menu, select “open all in tabs”, and you’re ready to go.
Plugins
Of course one of the most useful features of Firefox is its vast amount of plugins. The following list isn’t intended to surprise anyone, it’s just a group of my favorite extensions.
1. FireBug I use this tool more than any other extension. It is by far the most useful tool I’ve found to check and fix bugs, as well as iron out browser inconsistencies.
2. Web Developer Toolbar Another really useful tool for debugging, but it has so many more useful features that I just can’t get enough of it.
3. FoxMarks This extension allows you to sync your bookmarks between multiple computers. It’s not for everyone, but if you have more than one computer, it’s really nice.
4. Live Page Rank This light-weight plugin allows you to quickly determin a sites page rank. I find it helpful to quickly determine the legitimacy of a website.
5. Gears Gears really speeds things up, especially if you’re using WordPress. I’ve yet to use it to its full potential, but enjoy it just the same.