The Toolbox provides a single home for most of the developer tools that are built into Firefox. You can open it by selecting "Toggle Tools" from the Web Developer menu (under "Tools" on OS X and Linux, or "Firefox" on Windows), or by activating any tool hosted in it (for example, the JavaScript Debugger or the Page Inspector).
By default, the window appears docked to the bottom side of the Firefox window, but you can detach it if you like. This is what it looks like when it's docked:
The window itself is split into two parts: a toolbar along the top, and a main pane underneath:
Toolbar
The toolbar contains controls to activate a particular tool, to dock/float the window, and to close the window:
On the far left is a row of buttons to:
- close the window
- toggle the window between attached to the bottom of the browser window, and attached to the side of the browser window
- toggle the window between standalone and attached to the browser window
- access developer tool settings
Then there is an array of labeled buttons which enables you to switch between the different tools hosted by the window. The array may include the following tools:
Note that not all the hosted tools are always listed here: only the tools actually available in this context are shown (for example, not all tools support remote debugging yet, so if the debugging target is not the Firefox instance that launched the window, not all the hosted tools will be shown).
Finally, the icons at the far right enable you to launch various tools whose user interfaces are not hosted by the Toolbox:
Settings
Clicking the "Settings" button gives you access to settings for the Toolbox itself and for the tools it hosts:
Main Pane
The content of the main pane in the window is entirely controlled by, and specific to, the hosted tool currently selected.