Firefox 23 set to boost open source dev tools

From the ‘Descendants of View Source’ files:

Mozilla REALLY cares about developers (as it should). To that end, more Firefox releases than not cater to developers with tools integrated into the browser that provide visibility into how a website or web app works. I have learned more about web dev by using Mozilla’s tools and looking at the guts of website than any other source (by far).

The upcoming Firefox 23 release, currently scheduled for General Availability on August 6th is set to include a pile of developer tools that are both unique and at the same time, very familiar.

One of the improved ‘familiar’ tools is the Network Monitor. Chrome users already enjoy an awesome network monitor type tool that is in the ‘inspect element’ feature. Firefox kinda/sorta has pretended to have something similar (via Inspect element/web console) but with Firefox 23 the plan is to fully realize network visibility into page traffic

Firefox 23 is also set to enable a functional App Cache.

“If you have ever used the application cache you will probably be familiar with how easy it is to break offline functionality and how difficult it is to work out why things are broken,” Mozilla developer Mike Ratcliffe, wrote in a blog post. “I guess that what I am saying is that the application cache is a douchebag.”

The other interesting bit from my very narrow perspective is a small bug fixthat will now make URLs clickable in the Style Inspector.

It’s the little things that count after all…

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.