Web application engineer, addicted angler and computer science student

Sometimes, one cannot inspect JavaScript-objects using an external debugger, like Firebug.

For example, this can happen during development of Firefox addons: Open the JavaScript inspector of Firebug and you will only see the JavaScript errors on the currently displayed website, but not the ones from the addon.

Thus, I modified the inspect()-function from Ariel Tapia (codeprojects.com) a bit. My version will not only return a HTML string with all the attributes and functions that are inside the object. It will also add the values of these.

Installation: Just unzip the file and include it via
<script src="inspector.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
(As an alternative, you can also just copy and paste the function directly into your source.)

Example usage: var htmlResult = inspect(myObject, null, null);
htmlResult will now hold a string-representation of the properties and functions of myObject.

Note: An alternative for Firefox addons is Venkman. Haven’t really figured out how to use that though.
So, if you don’t want to bother with Venkman or need an object-inspector for any other purpose, I think you’ll be fine with my function provided above.

I am currently playing around a bit with Firefox addons.
To create a GUI for such extensions you need XUL, a XML-based markup language.

Now, check out the namespace for XUL:
http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul

Don’t get it? Fool! Go watch Ghostbusters I again! (Man, this reminds me of me being a kid and watching this movie over and over again).

However, now guess how a Firefox addon is called for debugging JavaScript in such extensions. Right: Venkman

Fruit-RSS is a simple extension that ads (Apple) Safari-style feed subscription capability to Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. It lets you subscribe to RSS and Atom feeds without having to register at online subscription services like Google Reader.

The look and feel is very similar to Apple’s Safari browser. Check out the screenshot and you’ll know what I mean, if you know how Safari displays feeds.
Another nice feature is that it checks for new feed updates at regular intervals and marks those feeds that have new postings in there. Bookmarks that point to a Fruit-RSS feed which was updated will have a mark like this:

• Download
  Available for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox
• Screenshot