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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?

#281

Post by julian37 »

mbell wrote: post #73

This is a big request: Improve "design in the browser" capabilities. i.e. pushing CSS/HTML and maybe JS changes made in Dev Tools back to the source files without manual shenanigans in the middle. I probably waste more time copying CSS / HTML tweak diffs from the browser back into the related source files than anything else with in browser dev tools. Due to the nature of 'losing changes' if I happen to hit refresh or…

Isn't that the wrong way around? Instead of pushing to the web server and let it figure out where to put the changes, change the local file (or file on the server, via NFS or such) and push the changes to the browser as well using tools such as swankjs [1] or, once it's ready, Kite [2] (that's my pet project).

For higher-level languages like Coffeescript or SASS, run a local compiler on the file or function so you can push the compiled code to the browser.

A nice side effect of this approach is that you can use a real code editor instead of the Notepad-style editor embedded in the browser.

In that regard, my #1 feature request for the Firefox devs is to finish and implement the remote debugging protocol [3] and, preferably, work with the WebKit devs towards unifying the two protocols.

[1] https://github.com/swank-js/swank-js

[2] https://github.com/jscheid/kite

[3] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Remote_Debugging_Protocol

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

#282

Post by mlakewood »

After having to hunt in google chrome dev tools for memory leaks from a single page JavaScript app, memory dumps with a separate tool that can give you a really good insight into what hanging around would be great. I found that if you were doing snapshots of website states and the memory footprint was significant then the browser just wasnt able to handle displaying all of them at once. I know this is an issue kinda for chrome, but I figure Firefox might have a similar problem. And single page/MVC javascript apps are only going to get more demanding.

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

#283

Post by subsection1h »

nawitus wrote: post #246
kevincrane wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, if you're referring to making every tab its own process, I personally don't like that. I'm sure there's performance or stability reasons for Chrome's decision, but I also don't really like having 30 different processes open for the one application.

Why not? I'd say 30 processes is a lot better than 1 process. You also need to take into consideration that the number of cores is increasing pretty quickly. Pretty soon consumers will have 32 cores and whatnot. I'm a Firefox user but really it's the largest weakness Firefox is having. If I open two new tabs simultaneously, the whole browser can freeze for a bit.

    Why not? I'd say 30 processes is a lot better than 1 process.
1 process is better than 300 processes, and I sometimes have more than 300 tabs open. (I always have more than 100 tabs open.)

    If I open two new tabs simultaneously, the whole browser can freeze for a bit.
People who prefer one process per tab tend to mention that tabs freeze up their browser, and I believe them, but this never happens to me. Maybe it's because I use NoScript and have all plugins disabled, except for Flash, which I block with Flashblock.

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

#284

Post by electrotype »

- To be able to "View Source" with an external editor, without having to use an extension that sometimes breaks from releases to releases, would be really nice.

- Being able to open a new tab that doesn't share the same sessions/cookies than the other tabs would be nice too!

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

#286

Post by bmuon »

JohnBooty wrote: post #265
bmuon wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what sourcemaps are for. You can minify your JS files with the Closure Compiler and tell it to create a Source Map. Then tell the developer tools to use that sourcemap and you'll debug looking at the unminified code even if you're running the minified one. http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/developertools/source...

First off, thanks for the link! I up-voted you; that's a really good introduction to source maps. I believe it would be incredibly useful if FF's dev tools could do some of this on their own; primarily for the reason that the person debugging the Javascript can't always control the build process. The times when you don't have access to the build process and/or the original unminified code are the times when you need…

If you don't have any of those, then I don't see how the developer tools can figure out what the original source is. You need some way of mapping points in the minified file to lines in the original file. Ask your favorite CDN to also host a source map. Otherwise the best the developer tools can do is prettify the minified file, something both Chrome and IE do (I don't recall if Firefox Nightly does).

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

#288

Post by ndesaulniers »

millzlane wrote: post #111

It would be helpful if I didn't have to close and restart my browser to install an addon. It would be easier to only have to restart the tab I want the addon to start working on.

Depends on the addon, some don't even need a restart!

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

#289

Post by ndesaulniers »

paulrouget wrote: post #131
jasonbarone wrote: post #119

I understand this is probably not be the kind of feedback your team is looking for, but I haven't used Firefox for front end development since I got a Retina Macbook because I can't stand reading text anywhere in Firefox. Before the Retina I used Firefox/Firebug all day everyday. After Retina, I jumped to Chrome.

retina support has been added to Firefox 19 (or maybe 20, not sure).

Released in Firefox 18. Release is currently Firefox 19. Release notes for 18: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/18.0/releasenotes/

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

#290

Post by mikeburrelljr »

Get rid of the current native debug tool - and replace it Firebug (or have the option to switch between the two).

There is nothing more annoying than trying to inspect something via Firebug, and you end up accidentally open the native debug tool instead.

/rant

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