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This is the second installment of my developer arsenal. Be sure to check out the previous article:
The tool that I will be profiling today is the IE Developer Toolbar. It has many features that somewhat overlap the features in Nikhil's Web Development Helper. However, these features are ones that I did not profile in the article about Tool #1. This is primarily because I usually lean towards the IE Developer Toolbar for the following features:
- Page Element Selection
- Element Attribute and Style Information
- Source View Isolation with CSS
- Tab Index Identification
- Ruler and Color Picker
These are the features that we will explore and it is honestly the tip of the iceberg with what this tool offers.
| Page Element Selection Lets start with my favorite which is the ability to select a page element.  With the IE Developer Toolbar you can highlight an element on a page and click it to select it. By selecting an element it becomes highlighted and its attributes and style are displayed.
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| Element Attribute and Style Information 
Now for the cool part. Attributes can be edited and modify the rendering in real time. Moreover the toolbar displays the selected element in a treeview of where the element exists in the page hierarchy allowing you to explore surrounding elements with ease.
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| Source View Isolation with CSS  With the IE Developer Toolbar there is no more "view source" and sifting through the entire page to review a section of code. Not to mention determining where the styles exist. The IE Developer Toolbar gives you the option of viewing source in a variety of methods one of which is the DOM (Element + Styles)
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| Tab Index Identification 
Now I believe every web developer gets at some point lost with the tab index order. The IE Developer Toolbar has an option for graphically representing the elements and the associated tab index.
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| Ruler The next two features or tools provide solutions to frequent needs. The ruler is a tool that means no more guessing about the size of space or an element in a web page. 
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Color Picker
 This next tool is so invaluable. If you have ever tried to match a color of an existing element, you probably know that it isn't always easy. Especially if the color is in an image. With the color picker it is as easy as point and click.
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Download the IE Developer Toolbar now from Microsoft....it's free.