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Ask HN: Webdevs, designers: what devtools should we (Mozilla) build in Firefox?

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Re: Ask HN: Webdevs, designers: what devtools should we (Mozilla) build in Firefox?

#41

I would say make Firefox as light and fast as possible by keeping ALL developer tools as addons. Most users aren't going to need them at all, so it's just eating up space for no reason. I personally prefer Firebug over Inspector, so I would rather see you throw more resources into integrating it fully with FF.

The developer tools don't slow down Firefox if not used (lazy loaded), and the space used is very small.

Firebug allows you to disable the builtin Inspector button.

Re: Ask HN: Webdevs, designers: what devtools should we (Mozilla) build in Firefox?

#42

The guy is asking for suggestion to the DEVELOPER TOOLS... no to the firefox browser itself. I have to admit that i changed my dev browser to chrome. The chrome developer tools are great. I like to have everything on one panel instead of the console in one place and the html and css in another.

If you viewed the above screenshot, you would see that in fact the current Firefox developer tools do the same thing.

Re: Ask HN: Webdevs, designers: what devtools should we (Mozilla) build in Firefox?

#43

Honestly, the absolute best thing you could do for any dev, is lighten the footprint FF currently has on my ram, and continue to improve the api for add-ons/plugins. The more stable, extensible and fast FireFox is, the more useful I will find it for development. But if more kludge is added to it, and it continues to get slower/bigger, the less likely I am to continue to use it, regardless of what amazing plugins are…

We already have a team working on memory consumption (and we already made some gigantic progress). We also have a team working on improving addons APIs (see the new builin SDK). We are also looking at existing extensions.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Webdevs, designers: what devtools should we (Mozilla) build in Firefox?

#44

Hi Paul, how about when serving pages that are https, but contain mixed content, highlighting somewhere exactly what the offending requests are. Currently, I have to scan the network pane and see what's coming from the http:// domain, but it'd save me a few seconds if this was more automated.

We do have plans/patches for that.

Re: Ask HN: Webdevs, designers: what devtools should we (Mozilla) build in Firefox?

#45
It would be great if it was easier to debug errors like this:

    [12:11:02.525] Empty string passed to getElementById(). @ https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.9.1/jquery.min.js:3
Especially when Firefox throws the error and Chromium doesn't.

Re: Ask HN: Webdevs, designers: what devtools should we (Mozilla) build in Firefox?

#46
The console certainly needs some love. I love that it opens so fast and feels so light compared to Firebug. I don't use it because:

* I can't select and copy text from the console's output (it's a listbox now)

* The autocomplete is not as good as Firebug's and hitting enter does not complete it

* The inspector does not remember the width of the two panels (left with DOM/right with CSS rules)

You get the idea. You've completed the 90%, now fix the 10% left.

Re: Ask HN: Webdevs, designers: what devtools should we (Mozilla) build in Firefox?

#47
I have to be honest - I find the developer tools a pain: They aren't even close to replacing Firebug, yet they're more obtrusive. So I can't stop using Firebug, and I can't remove the unwanted built-in menu options.

So for me personally, what I'd really like to see is either one of:

- Match Firebug feature for feature

- Allow for the dev tools to be completely removed from the interface

Sorry, but it really does come down to those two: Whilst the Dev Tools can't replace Firebug, I won't use them. So either allow me to get rid of them, or allow me to switch 100% to them.

Sorry it's not more constructive, but I've no interest in having to juggle between two different debug tools because they both have awesome features. So I don't care what amazing new stuff you might be lining up, I won't use them until all of the functionality I use in Firebug is also available in FF's builtins.

Re: Ask HN: Webdevs, designers: what devtools should we (Mozilla) build in Firefox?

#48
post #37

I would say make Firefox as light and fast as possible by keeping ALL developer tools as addons. Most users aren't going to need them at all, so it's just eating up space for no reason. I personally prefer Firebug over Inspector, so I would rather see you throw more resources into integrating it fully with FF.

That new Inspector thing is really annoying. I always accidentally open it instead of Firebug. From a developer stand point, Firebug stills beat all other browser dev-tools by a mile and is the main reason I still have Firefox on my dashboard.

Firebug allows you to disable the builtin Inspector button.
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