When I'm developing pages that have a lot of JavaScript in, I love Firefox. Ignoring all the hype about why it's better than Internet Explorer it does have one really cool, out of the box debugging tool - the JavaScript Console. It makes tracking problems down so easy. Sure it's a two step process (find the offending error message in the console log, and then look in the source viewer to find the actual line - sometimes a tricky thing when the page is dynamically generated).

But all is not lost in IE. Far from it. Most people when they want to debug JavaScript in IE complain that the only way to do it is to go and buy a copy of Visual Studio. Well, sure, you can do that if you want. But as anyone who's used it to try and debug one typo in a page it can be overkill. Luckily the answer lies in the free (and very small download) MS Script Debugger.

It's integrated with IE (including the latest IE7 betas and release candidate) - when you get a JavaScript error reported on the page just hit "yes" to debug and get taken to the offending line nicely highlit in a source viewer (and if you want to check the source at any time the debugger adds a new item to the "view" menu).

The other toy that makes developing and debugging (JavaScript, HTML, CSS and graphics) in IE a pleasure is the new developers toolbar. This little add-on for IE7 comes with a whole host of goodies from on-screen rulers, a fully featured DOM inspector, the ability to disable browser functions (eg JavaScript or CSS), site level cookie control, highlighting (and detailed information) for any element you might need to examine and even a handy resizer to fit common screen sizes to see how things look.

As a developer currently working on an image,CSS and JavaScript heavy site these tools are invaluable in helping me to deliver what the designer and client want. Give them a quick try and see what you think....