Developer Toolbar

The Developer Toolbar gives you command-line access to a number of developer tools from within Firefox. It is a Graphical Command Line Interpreter that provides integrated help for its commands and displays rich output with the power and conciseness of a command line. It is also extensible: you can add your own local commands and even convert them into add-ons so that other people can install them too.

Opening the Developer Toolbar

To open the Developer Toolbar, press Shift+F2, or go to the Web Developer menu (which is a sub-menu in the Tools menu on OS X and Linux) and select "Developer Toolbar". It will appear at the bottom of the browser, like this:

The command-line prompt takes up most of the toolbar, with a "Close" button on the left and a button to toggle the Toolbox on the right.

Apart from the "Close" button, either pressing Shift+F2 or selecting the "Developer Toolbar" menu item will toggle the toolbar off.

Using the command line

Like a normal command line, you execute commands by typing them at the prompt and pressing Enter.

As you type, the Developer Toolbar will suggest possible completions to your command:

If there is more than one possible completion, the Up and Down arrow keys will cycle through the suggestions. Pressing Tab will select the current suggestion.

Pressing F1 will display all the suggestions in a list, with a summary of what each command will do:

Typing "help" will show a list of all commands:

Typing "help <command>" will give you the help for <command>:

Commands

Since the Developer Toolbar provides built-in help for the commands it supports, we have not provided complete documentation for the supported commands here. To get complete documentation for <command>, type "help <command>" into the toolbar.

Developer Toolbar Command Command Definition
addon List all installed add-ons, disable or enable a specific add-on.
appcache View and manipulate appcache entries.
break List, add, and remove breakpoints.
calllog Log function calls to the Console.
connect Connect to a remote server: subsequent commands will be run on the server.
console Open, close, and clear the Console.
context Add a prefix to future commands.
cookie List, remove, and set cookies.
dbg Commands to control the Debugger.
disconnect Disconnect from a remote server.
edit Edit one of the resources loaded by the page.
export Export the page.
folder Open a folder in your system's file explorer, using its path syntax. folder openprofile opens your profile.
help Show all available commands.
highlight Given a selector, highlight all the nodes that match the selector.
inject Inject a library like jQuery or underscore into the page.
inspect Examine a node in the Inspector.
jsb Pretty-print a JavaScript file.
listen

Enable remote debugging: start listening to TCP connections from the debugger.

From Firefox 51, this command take an additional protocol parameter that enables you to listen for WebSocket connections.

mdn

"mdn css [property]" gives summary documentation from MDN for the given property, and provides a link to the MDN page for the property.

media Emulate the given media type for the current page.
pagemod Remove and replace attributes and elements in the current page.
paintflashing Switch paint flashing on and off.
pref Set, reset, and display preferences.
profiler Start/stop profiling, and open/close the Profiler.
resize Control Responsive Design View.
restart Restart the browser.
rulers

Toggle rulers for the page.

screenshot Take a screenshot.
security Displays information about security features for the current domain.
tilt

Removed in Firefox 47

Open, close, and manipulate 3D view.

tools srcdir path loads devtools from a local checkout (top-level directory with CLOBBER file). builtin loads originals.
unlisten

Disable remote debugging.

Command Line Examples

The following example will take a full screen screenshot of the current document being viewed in Firefox:

screenshot --fullpage firefox-developer-toolbar-gcli-screenshot-test.png

Where firefox-developer-toolbar-gcli-screenshot-test is the desired name of the screenshot image.

Contributing to the Command Line

The Firefox Command Line is built using the GCLI project, which has a significant section of documentation on GCLI and how it works. There is also documentation specific to integrating GCLI and Firefox on MDN.

Customization

There is some information on customizing the Command Line (particularly adding new commands) on the MDN.

Document Tags and Contributors

 Last updated by: jalbertbowden,