9 ms·

i am curious, what is the advantage of using Firebug instead of the built-in developer tools?

JohnBooty 12y ago
One advantage is that there are plugins, like YSlow from Yahoo, that are available for Firebug. Though the article notes that plugins don't currently work with the Firebug 3 alpha. YSlow is pretty useful, both as a developer and when attempting to demonstrate potential problems with a site's performance to others in an objective way. Besides: a plugin with its own plugins is just cool.
arenaninja 12y ago
I think Firefox Dev Tools may have reached parity with Firebug. Up until recently (~3 months), Firebug was superior in network, more informative in console when using console.log for objects, resizing, etc. Still, Firebug does have add-ons
- Touche 12y ago
  Firefox Dev Tools still has some gigantic bugs that make it unusable for a lot of scenarios. For example, it doesn't show evaled code in the debugger. Which means anything that dynamically creates code (common in development) can't be debugged. Shumway (the Firefox flash compiler) for example.
  - illumen 12y ago
    Using both is sort of needed at the moment. Firebug for example doesn't do source maps. Also, firebug is too slow for some pages I've worked on. But of course firebug does some things better still.
  - mbrubeck 12y ago
    That's fixed in Firefox 36, which will be released to the Developer Edition channel this Friday. (You can test it on the Nightly channel now.) https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=865313 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=865313 https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/#aurora https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/#aurora https://nightly.mozilla.org/ https://nightly.mozilla.org/
    - Touche 12y ago
      Believe me I've been following this issue closely for a long time and know the status. While the large work that was needed has been done, it hasn't been fixed completely. In my case I get evaled items to show up but they 1) don't have actual names just foo.js -> eval and 2) don't have the actual source shown. I think this might be the issue that is blocking me: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=833744 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=833744 So while this is "on the road" to being fixed, it's not fixed completely.
      - mbrubeck 12y ago
        You can give scripts names using the sourceURL pragma: http://fitzgeraldnick.com/weblog/59/ http://fitzgeraldnick.com/weblog/59/ And I'm not sure what you mean about the source. I see the correct source when I debug evaled scripts in Firefox Nightly.
Fuxy 12y ago
I use a number of plugins in firebug like YSlow and FireLogger that unfortunately don't work with the default Firefox developer tools. I honestly wish they did since there are very few features I would miss from Firebug itself but the plugins add very useful features.
ep103 12y ago
Firebug is basically built to extend default FF dev tool capabilities. Its comparable to running chrome nightlies.

One advantage is that there are plugins, like YSlow from Yahoo, that are available for Firebug. Though the article notes that plugins don't currently work with the Firebug 3 alpha. YSlow is pretty useful, both as a developer and when attempting to demonstrate potential problems with a site's performance to others in an objective way. Besides: a plugin with its own plugins is just cool.

arenaninja 12y ago

I think Firefox Dev Tools may have reached parity with Firebug. Up until recently (~3 months), Firebug was superior in network, more informative in console when using console.log for objects, resizing, etc. Still, Firebug does have add-ons

Touche 12y ago
Firefox Dev Tools still has some gigantic bugs that make it unusable for a lot of scenarios. For example, it doesn't show evaled code in the debugger. Which means anything that dynamically creates code (common in development) can't be debugged. Shumway (the Firefox flash compiler) for example.
- illumen 12y ago
  Using both is sort of needed at the moment. Firebug for example doesn't do source maps. Also, firebug is too slow for some pages I've worked on. But of course firebug does some things better still.
- mbrubeck 12y ago
  That's fixed in Firefox 36, which will be released to the Developer Edition channel this Friday. (You can test it on the Nightly channel now.) https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=865313 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=865313 https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/#aurora https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/#aurora https://nightly.mozilla.org/ https://nightly.mozilla.org/
  - Touche 12y ago
    Believe me I've been following this issue closely for a long time and know the status. While the large work that was needed has been done, it hasn't been fixed completely. In my case I get evaled items to show up but they 1) don't have actual names just foo.js -> eval and 2) don't have the actual source shown. I think this might be the issue that is blocking me: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=833744 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=833744 So while this is "on the road" to being fixed, it's not fixed completely.
    - mbrubeck 12y ago
      You can give scripts names using the sourceURL pragma: http://fitzgeraldnick.com/weblog/59/ http://fitzgeraldnick.com/weblog/59/ And I'm not sure what you mean about the source. I see the correct source when I debug evaled scripts in Firefox Nightly.

Fuxy 12y ago

I use a number of plugins in firebug like YSlow and FireLogger that unfortunately don't work with the default Firefox developer tools. I honestly wish they did since there are very few features I would miss from Firebug itself but the plugins add very useful features.

ep103 12y ago

Firebug is basically built to extend default FF dev tool capabilities. Its comparable to running chrome nightlies.