Chapter 14. Web Development with Firefox

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Firefox and Compliance with Web Standards

• The Mozilla Developer Interface

• Web Developer Tools

• JavaScript for Developers

• Understanding CSS

• Using CSS with Firefox

• DOM Inspector

• Working with Web Development

Web development is more than just creating web pages.

Firefox, as a browser, can affect what a web page will look like. (To an extent, so can Internet Explorer; however, the user has no control over the appearance of a web page. In contrast, Firefox provides control.)

So you are going to look at web development with Firefox. You are not going to develop a website that's not the purpose of this chapter. If you want to develop websites, there are many good references on the topic, including those listed in the following note.

You can use these capabilities to help you design Firefox themes, extensions, and web pages. An example is a typical Firefox or Thunderbird theme that can consist of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), images, and supporting files.

An extension might have all the same files that a theme has, plus you will also find JavaScript in it. If you are planning to develop themes or extensions, everything in this chapter will prove useful.

Web page and HTML developers will find that they need to use HTML, CSS, and a scripting language usually JavaScript.

Hopefully, after you finish this chapter, you'll understand how to use Firefox's tools and the techniques necessary to be a successful web developer. You will also understand the ideas behind CSS.

This chapter covers

• Issues such as Firefox's compliance with web standards

• Some of the tools available to developers

• JavaScript and the JavaScript console

• CSS, the standards, how they are supposed to work, and how you can use them

• Firefox's use of CSS

• The document object model (DOM) inspector, a tool that helps you learn how a page is laid out

Note

If you want some good references on website building, two interesting titles are

• Sams Teach Yourself Web Services in 24 Hours by Stephen Potts and Mike Kopack, Sams Publishing (ISBN: 0-672-32515-2).

• Special Edition Using Microsoft FrontPage 2003 by Paul Colligan and Jim Cheshire, Que Publishing (ISBN: 0-7897-2954-7).

Both Que and Sams offer other similar books as well.

Let's start with web page compliance.