firefox extensions and version 1.5

Just to be in keeping with the rest of the programmers, etc.. who are posting their favorite extensions:

Thanks to MR Tech Local Install, here is a quick list of some of my enabled extensions


ColorZilla 0.8.2
Gmail Notifier 0.5.5.2
Html Validator 0.7.9
IE Tab 1.0.8
MeasureIt 0.3.5
MR Tech Local Install 4.2.6
SearchPluginHacks 0.1.3
UrlParams 2.01.00
View formatted source 0.9.4.4
Web Developer 1.0.2

My favorites by use: Web Developer - for debugging form submissions, checking table layouts and working with CSS. UrlParams is a nice extension (when I remember I have it) because it lets you change any of the parameters including hidden fields for debugging forms.

Next would probably be the ColorZilla, and MeasureIt for CSS color schemes and sizing/positioning. Colorzilla is a little eyedropper icon that runs in the lower left corner of the browser. Click that and cross hairs come up and you can click anywhere to grab the color. Button, image, text, it doesn't matter. The color displays as you hover, and when you click it displays the RGB, hex and css codes that get you that color. A right click and you can copy it for adding to your own documents. There are additional options for getting the coordinates of the color position found, hsv and dom-path. Really useful for matching colors when you can't remember what the css element you used, or you're trying to mimic another site.

Gmail notifier would be great if it didn't stop working about every month or two, due to whatever Google is doing, and require an update.

Search plugin hacks turned out to be very useful when I was playing with my own firefox search plug-in and needed to remove a bad version.

IE tab is new for me. Rather than remember that I'm testing things in firefox, start IE, search for the file, open that, then switch back and forth, left clicking on the lower right icon will switch rendering engines between firefox and IE for comparisons. On a three button mouse, the middle click will open the opposite engine in a new tab. For the IE version, I'm guessing it's whatever is currently installed on your computer.

That's all on my work setup. At home I've upgraded to Firefox 1.5.0.1, and am using the All-In-One Sidebar to a great extent along with some of the same extensions from work.
That's a nice little way to manage a lot of windows (downloads, themes, extensions, bookmarks, history....) I also have a blogger bar installed so I don't have to skip back to IE to blog when I land on a cool site, which happens quite often thanks to the StumbleUpon extension.

As for firefox 1.5:
Some things are a little hard to get used to in 1.5. I keep thinking the apply/use or options is missing from themes and extensions and whatnot, because that stuff is hidden under a gear button. A small nuisance when so much real estate exists in the toolbar that could easily fit the update, disable and option buttons too.

One thing I noticed after carefully preparing everything for the upgrade: backing up my files to retain bookmarks, extensions and their settings. I didn't need to do that. Everything was still there when I restarted. Extension options, bookmarks.

Automatic updates are now part of the package. They wait for you to install. I kinda miss the little update icon on the top telling me to install a new update. I haven't noticed a lot of other changes yet.