Firebug is an exceptional tool that can increase your productivity many fold, specially if you are new to web development. However it is amazing to see a large number of web developers working without it. This article covers essential overview & useful tips that will help you master this wonderful tool.

Default Tabs

Frankly best way to learn Firebug is by using it. However, before you can do that, you may need some motivation. Following is brief overview of some of the important features you will find under the default tabs; giving you an idea of how useful it is:

• Console Tab
  This tab is your best friend when things go wrong. Enabling this tab will allow you to find detailed and useful information about the errors in JavaScript, CSS, and XML. Here you can dump all type of information using a set of powerful logging functions that you can call from your own web pages. Additionally this tab also contains  JavaScript command line tool enabling you to execute JavaScript on the fly.
• HTML Tab
  HTML is very simple, but when the markup gets too large and nested it is difficult to pin point exact location where you need to make changes. This tab allows you to do all that with extraordinary simplicity. You can find the location by simply digging through your HTML document tree, clicking the element on the page (inspect button should be enabled) or by simply searching for a specific text. Another important feature located under this tab is CSS layout, visually illustrating all the offsets, margins, borders, padding, and sizes for you.
• CSS Tab
  This tab provides you the ability to inspect and edit CSS live. You can load any CSS file called from the current page and make live changes. Here you have very simple but powerful CSS editor that supports preview of colors and images; has complete dictionary of standard CSS keywords enabling you to easily cycle between various properties while you edit; and most importantly every thing is happening live in your browser.
• Script Tab
  Script tab contains a powerful JavaScript debugger that lets you pause execution at any time and see what each variable looked like at that moment. If your code is little sluggish, you can use the JavaScript profiler to measure performance and find bottlenecks fast. You can work on any JavaScript file loaded or generated in the current page.
• DOM Tab
  The Document Object Model is a big hierarchy of all objects and functions that you can manipulate with JavaScript. Firebug helps you quickly find DOM objects under this tab and then edit them on the fly. Since you can create your own objects using JavaScript, Firebug will show them in bold so you can easily differentiate them from standard DOM objects. The DOM explorer is also a great way to find JavaScript functions that you wish to debug. If you click on a function in the DOM explorer, Firebug will take you right to the Script tab and highlight the function.
• Net Tab
  This tab shows you useful information about resource requests and responses on the current page. The information is broken down under several sub-tabs enabling you to analyze performance for different file types. You will also be able to examine HTTP header information and monitor XMLHttpRequest – vital for Ajax development.

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