In one of my previous article “Remove all unused CSS selector” I wrote about how one can remove unused selector from his stylesheet using Dust-Me-Selectors, similarly I found an Addon which has few benefit over Dust me selectors. CSS Usage is a Mozilla extension which finds unused selectors and can be exported in a new file.
Steps to go about it :
Open the Firebug interface.
Select CSS Usage at extreme right of the Firebug interface.
Click Scan as shown in the below image.
Now you will find the selectors in Green and Red colors. Green and Red color indicates Seen and Unseen selectors in the stylesheet respectively.
Then you can click export cleaned CSS that exports the cleaned CSS in a new tab, copy it and edit it in your original stylesheet.
Paste it in your stylesheet and you will find “UNUSED” prefix to the selectors in your file, where you can delete those selectors according to your specification.
If you have any ideas about similar stuff you can share it through the comments.
Web designers always come across websites from which he takes inspiration. We also like to take some images from the website often to create something new.
Downloading all images on a particular webpage can be quite tedious. This is where I find OutWit images a great add-on with my Firefox browser.
Install OutWit Images on your Firefox browser. You can access it from an icon next to the address bar.
You can get these images with a simple drag and drop, you can also set the size or format specification. Selected images are gathered in a basket “the catch” from which they can be saved directly onto the user’s hard disk.
The application provides many options for filtering, viewing and saving the images. OutWit Images is the first application of its kind, specifically designed for the collection of images.
Its sleek, easy-to-use interface displays the thumbnails on a black background and allows to smoothly scroll through quantities of images, making it efficient and easy.
Images taken with OutWit:
Do you know about any similar tools on Firefox or Chrome. I personally find OutWit the best. You can share your view through your comments.
Until I found this Addon I had used Google to make simple calculations or an electronic calculator. I wanted something that integrates with my browser. 🙂
I am a designer and need to carry out small calculations and this add-on makes my life a lot easier. Yes there is a calculator on every OS but not leaving the browser is a lot more efficient.
Status Bar Calculator for Firefox
I would rate 10 out 10 to this Mozilla Addon Status-Bar Calculator which is very handy and convenient for quick calculations.
It sits in the corner of the status bar and you don’t even notice until you need it. It also does not clutter my browser like some other add-on end up doing. 🙂
For Google Chrome users:
In case you are using Chrome as your primary browser, install Chromey Calculator extension which you can use for calculations.
Google keeps bringing in a lot of new features and I must admit I am a fan of most new features. Though sometimes these very features can be a little irritating. Take Google instant preview feature which allows me to get a preview of the website while I mouse-over the search result. Unlike Google Instant this feature cannot be turned off. 🙁
Thanks to a post I came across online, I only have to install a GreaseMonkey Script on my Firefox browser and it gives me the option to “Disable Instant Preview”.
Screenshot:
For Firefox users
If you are using Firefox browser you will need to install GreaseMonkey Add-on. You can read all about it here.
Do you find yourself searching through folder after folder to find a particular file you are working on? You may have many folders on your computer and this can make it tricky to remember exactly where the item you want is located.
Even if you know exactly where a folder is, it can be frustrating to find through the same levels of folders over and over to get to the file you want. So it becomes irritating to browse folder or file which is often needed. To access those file quickly we can create a shortcut on the browser.
To do so we just have to simply download and install a Mozilla extension which integrates with the browser and provides quick access to the file or folder.
To get it to your browser window go in ’view menu –> toolbar –> shortcut toolbar’.
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And you can see in the above image we have a toolbar just below the navigation bar.We can create a new file and folder shortcut by just clicking on the extreme left icon of the toolbar, browse the folder and we are done with a shortcut.
More about this Addon
We can also change the order of the shortcuts.
I could open files/folders within Firefox in a new window or even a new tab.
We can also add unlimited number of shortcuts to any file or folder
Usually what I do to find font details like font family, font size, its color etc I open Firebug(F12) and start inspecting with it but this becomes time-consuming. What if we get something that provides font details with just a single click. It can be done with the help of Mozilla extension i.e. Font Finder which provides font details in a pop up window.
Restart your browser and you will find an icon at bottom-left in the status bar.
As you can see in the image below there is a font finder icon. Click once on it and then click on the font whose details you need. In a pop up window it provides all details about Color, Font, Spacing, Decoration, Transformation and Element.
Previously I had written about RockMelt browser which was supposed to make our social networking experience a lot easier. More than social, it was atleast positioning itself as a browser than makes sharing things online very easy. I think RockMelt held out a lot of promise as a concept but it disappoints and seems to be just fancier version of Chrome.
Chrome is my favorite browser, so much so that I think it will win the browser wars against IE and Firefox. RockMelt is built on Chromium. It is so similar to Chrome that one does not even need to look at the literature to figure that out.
Some major things missing with RockMelt
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The first thing I needed to do to even download RockMelt was to use a Facebook account. I think this is a great way for RockMelt to build publicity and become viral as a product but I do not think it is correct for a browser to expect someone to get Facebook account just to download it.
You are asked to insert your Facebook credentials to log into this browser. This means now RockMelt can use our profile information on Facebook. This can make some people a little skeptical when it comes to privacy.
The browser works a lot better if you are using Facebook a lot. For Twitter, the feeds did not load up as fast I would expect and that was a little problematic.
I use Tweet Deck to manage my Twitter account. With RockMelt I was expecting a browser that could allow me to do the same thing in the browser itself. After using it for a couple of hours I do not think I will do away with Tweet Deck or any other social networking application. The problem with RockMelt is that it does not bring anything new to the table.
RockMelt to me seems like a fancier version of Chrome. If that is all that RockMelt will offer me, I might as well stick to Chrome and search for some good extensions. The developers should have stuck to releasing some new plugins for Chrome rather than come up with a new browser. 😛
What are your views on RockMelt? Will it rock or will it sink like a rock in the deep end of the ocean. Do drop in your comments.
RockMelt browser promises to be the next exciting new browser with a clear view of being useful from a social media perspective. It is based on Chromium. It promises to revolutionize social media usage by bringing in some intrinsic built-in features to the browser itself. As it is based on Chromium it supports almost all extensions which work with your Chrome browser.
Meanwhile you can sign-up for RockMelt with your Facebook account. It will send you an invitation soon so you can use RockMelt browser. This has actually helped create a lot of buzz about RockMelt because invites are available to people who get invited to RockMelt. I guess a viral campaign is a nice way to build up publicity for a browser.
There are many browsers out there but RockMelt seems to be focusing more on social media as its calling card. Will this work for it? Do drop in your comments and views.
I always find it difficult to compare mockups with my website, so I came across a Mozilla add-on which splits the browser in tile pattern. I used to compare the mockup with the original website is to toggle ALT + TAB. Then I found a better solution which can be used with Mozilla add-on called Tile Tabs. There are several ways of doing this but I found Tile Tabs the easiest to use.
A web designer wants his web-site to be visually same across all the browsers. Amongst other browsers or even the latter incarnations of Internet Explorer, i.e. IE 6 which is a very different animal.
We always want to test web-sites in various IE versions IE6, IE7 and IE8 for browser compatibility. But it is always difficult to test on different machines.
Different Ways to Test Website on Various Versions of IE
What I used to do is to install 3 operating systems on a machine for IE testing, but it consumes a lot of time.
We can also make use of IE Tester but in some cases I found this unreliable, so I prefered to avoid it.
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But I came across an excellent way to run multiple version of Internet Explorer on standalone computer.
Thanks to spoon browser ,which provides hundreds of desktop applications. It also provides multiple IE version that runs at the same time on standalone PC.
Run your applications anywhere, anytime as Spoon virtualization lets you run desktop applications with no installations. Do you know about similar tools to test multiple IE versions? Do drop in your comments.
