Firefox Extensions Part 4

Posted by jerothe in Browsers      2 comments

Jun
4

I know you all tire of my reviews of all of the Firefox extensions, but here is another couple ones that may blow your mind.

Fangs – Firefox Screen Reader Emulator

The other day at work, we came across a site that had a browser (Fast Browser) that would give you a little animated helper dude that acted as a screen reader. But the guy didn’t seem to read things on a webpage with any sort of order or choice, so I figured, hey, Firefox has to have extensions for this. Sure enough,
they did.

Called Fangs in response to the wildly common and popular screen reader JAWS, this is a useful extension to understand a webpage
from a user who doesn’t have a common person’s luxuries. For those who are deaf or blind, screen readers can allow them to navigate a website by their choice of heading or links, as well as turn the text on the screen into understandable braille characters on a refreshable Braille device.

Rating : 9 of 10

I didn’t give this a perfect rating solely because I haven’t used it that extensively. But from what I can tell, for free it does a lot of the basic and advanced features that JAWS will do specifically for web pages. Fangs will highlight headers and lists in different colors, and basically it looks like one big page of text. It will also give you helpful information on how disabled users see the links and the headers in your page. It will list them out, giving you information on their choices of navigation, and how much that makes sense when it is just text.

FoxyVoice – Firefox Audible Screen Reader Extension

Read in a monotone voice, this will give you a true idea of what a webpage is like for those who do cannot see. Foxyvoice is a extension that is simple to use, with a small icon in the lower right toolbar, one click will turn the screen reader on at any point in time.

Rating : 9 of 10

Again, I haven’t used this extensively in development. My one questions is how accurate it is to audible readers. My understanding was that other readers will actually read the HTML code out loud as well, and Foxyvoice does not. I believe you can install an SDK voice kit into Windows to give you additional voices as well to break away from the computerized voice that is the default.

Duplicate Tab

This is a simple extension that will make a new tabbed browser window with the exact same address of a website that you are currently on.

Rating : 10 of 10

Does exactly what it says it is going to do, duplicates a tab. The only problem is when you use it in conjunction with the Web Developer Toolbar because the shortcut for a new duplicate tab is shift+ctrl+T and that is also the shortcut option for toggling the Developer Toolbar. So, all we need to do is set the options > keys in the Toolbar to something else.

Web Developer Toolbar

What an amazing tool! I love this thing. Here is a screenshot of just one section of the tools available;

So many options. You can use something as simple as a one click button to view a webpage’s source, to something as complicated as outlining all of your block elements in a red border color to see how they are reacting. This is so useful for developing CSS sites. You have validation options for CSS and XHTML as well as standards for other types of internet ready devices like palm pilots and phones with the WCAG standards checking built in.

There are one click options to clear the cache, one click options to view a webpage in a different resolution, and you have complete control over the settings with an options button as well. This will let you set shortcuts, the screen sizes you want to test, and even the testing colors for borders and stuff.

Rating : 10 of 10

I think this is my new favorite extension. I don’t see how much of a use it would be for a non web-developer, but I use this in developing and just everyday use for view source and clearing my cache. A must if you are seriously into saving time in testing.

IE View

Self explanitory, this is a option that will be added on install to your right click menu options. It is a one click to open the page you are currently viewing in an IE browser window.

Rating : 10 of 10

Simple and straight to the point, this is helpful when previewing a website during development.