Using Firebug in Windows XP Home - Editing HTML and seeing the results in real time
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As discussed previously, we can edit HTML and see the results immediately in real time. This is one of the biggest advantages of using Firebug. To do this, follow these four general steps:
- Launch Firebug in the HTML page you would like to inspect (press F12).
- Click the "inspect element" button and point to the HTML element you would like to inspect.
- Press the "right click" button of the mouse to hold to that element.
- You can now start editing the HTML.
To effectively edit the HTML and see the results, you should use the "edit" button in the Firebug HTML console, as this provides a cleaner area to edit than directly editing in other available methods.
To do this, click the "edit" button and highlight those elements you would like to edit. In the screenshot below, I am about to edit the word "Dictionary:"
After changing any of the edited elements, Firebug automatically reflects those changes in the actual HTML page. There are things you should keep in mind when doing real time editing:
- Pressing F5 (refresh) or reloading the browser will erase all the edits done using Firebug. This means you should be careful not to reload if you still have not completed doing the edits, or else you will have to start all over again.
- This is not perfect. Sometimes Firebug is subject to limitations. For example if you are correcting a browser incompatibility issue with Internet Explorer, you cannot test it using Firebug, because in order to use Firebug you are using Firefox.
We will proceed with the second part of this tutorial to touch on the beauty of mastering CSS (HTML styles), which can be done very easily with Firebug.
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