If you do any amount of web developing with CSS and JavaScript, it’s probably a safe bet that you use the Firefox and Firebug combo to test ideas, tweak appearance and behavior of pages, and debug problems when they crop up. You might also use a widescreen monitor to provide more screen real estate to flip between your code and the rendered output. In an arrangement like this, the open Firebug panel takes up precious vertical space, while spare pixels on the side go unused.

After a few trivial changes to Firebug, I’ve modified it to open on the right side of the browser as a sidebar. With the stock plugin, you can achieve a similar layout by detaching Firebug from the current tab and moving its window in the same position, but this has a generally unwelcome side effect: the separate window doesn’t update when you switch tabs. With Widerbug, you can open the Firebug sidebar, and it will keep up with you as you switch tabs and maintain its width.

Release History

• Widerbug is Retired
  January 6, 2011
  Firebug 1.9.0 added widescreen support, making Widerbug obsolete
• Widerbug 1.5.0
  Released on January 25, 2010
  Merged Firebug 1.5.0 changes, for Firefox 3.6.*
• Widerbug 1.4.0
  Released on July 17, 2009
  Merged Firebug 1.4.0 changes, for Firefox 3.5.*
• Widerbug 1.3.3
  Released on May 25, 2009
  Merged Firebug 1.3.3 changes, for Firefox 3.0.*
• Widerbug 1.3.0
  Released on Jan. 8, 2009
  Merged Firebug 1.3.0 changes, for Firefox 3.0.*
• Widerbug 1.2.1
  Released on Sept. 13, 2008
  Merged Firebug 1.2.1 changes, for Firefox 3.0.*
• Widerbug 1.0.5
  Released on Jan. 19, 2008
  Initial release, for Firefox 2.*

Download

Install Widerbug
(You may have to temporarily allow command-tab.com to install Firefox extensions. Also, if you’re currently using Firebug, please uninstall Firebug first, restart Firefox, and then install Widerbug, just to be safe.)