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ScreenGrab & Devboi for Firefox

    Alex Walker
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    It’s been a few months since I’ve had a good look at some of the newer Firefox extensions, but there are two that have really grabbed my fancy lately.

    ScreenGrab

    ScreenGrab screenshotThe first is ScreenGrab. Like many, I looked at this one and immediately thought ‘What the?… what can it do, that I can’t now?’.

    The very worthwhile answer to that question is simple — it has the ability to capture all the parts of a long, scrolling page and then automatically glues it all together into one, long, shiny new PNG. If you’ve ever wasted minutes of your life doing this by hand you’ll recognize this as a very neat trick.

    In fact, I can’t think of another application, client-based or otherwise that is able perform this seemingly simple task — this pony has but one trick, but it’s a good one.

    DevBoi

    The second nifty new string to the Firefox bow is Zhluk.com’s DevBoi.

    Devboi is a Web developer reference sidebar for Firefox, at this stage cover HTML 4.01, CSSS2.1, DOM and XUL. I’d expect more will added over time. Although no single aspect of it is remarkable, the whole package is well thought-out and immediately useful.

    The CSS reference uses ‘♥’, ‘½’, and ‘x’ to let you check browser support for any property at a glance, and links each one to PPK’s Quirksmode reference which details known inconsistencies, bugs and workarounds for that property.

    The HTML reference shows a complete tag listing marking deprecated tags and other useful information, as well as linking to the W3C explanatory page for each tag. XHTML might be a useful update for the next version.

    Devboi also includes a comprehensive DOM reference, a XUL reference and there’s even a Ruby and Rails reference in development — if you’re that way inclined.

    All up, far too much to screen cap here, so I’ve thrown together a little demo to walk you through it. It showcases some of Devboi’s finer points along with my clunky control of Macromedia’s very impressive Captivate.

    If you’re still unsure, Martin Cohen also provides a nice working online preview here for your test-driving pleasure.