582400 - Move the Clear functionality in the Web Console to a context menu

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(DevTools :: General, defect)

Description

[Patrick Walton (:pcwalton)]

Attachment: Proposed patch.

In the Web Console, the Clear Console button takes up a large amount of screen real estate and slightly clutters the interface. It's also an infrequently-used action, especially if we have headers to help developers visually categorize their messages (bug 580400). So I suggest moving it to a context menu.

The attached patch implements this. Requesting approval for Firefox 4.

Comment 1

[David Dahl :ddahl]

Comment on attachment 460673 [details] [diff] [review]
Proposed patch.

Won't this make the clear functionality less discoverable?

Comment 2

[Patrick Walton (:pcwalton)]

Yes, but I think it's rare enough that the tradeoff in discoverability versus clutter reduction makes it worth it. The alternative would be to move the clear button to the bottom right.

Comment 3

[Patrick Walton (:pcwalton)]

Attachment: Screenshot.

Screenshot attached.

Comment 4

[David Dahl :ddahl]

I do like like that. nice.

Comment 5

[Alex Limi (:limi) — Firefox UX Team]

Comment on attachment 460673 [details] [diff] [review]
Proposed patch.

I don't have strong opinions either way, but right-click is a fine way to do this — if possible, it would also be nice to support the keyboard shortcut that terminals use to do this (Ctrl/Cmd-K), but since it's already assigned to a function in FF, it might be hard to selectively override it here.

In any case, I'm fine with either approach, as long as the console can be cleared easily. :)

Comment 6

[Rob Campbell [:rc] (:robcee)]

this conflicts now that bug 574036 has landed. Doesn't apply cleanly.

Comment 7

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

This patch does not apply

Comment 8

[Patrick Walton (:pcwalton)]

Attachment: Proposed patch (trunk rebase 2010-08-10).

Rebased to trunk. I'm requesting rereview because the patch is significantly different from the older iteration now that bug 574036 has landed.

Comment 9

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

Comment on attachment 464628 [details] [diff] [review]
Proposed patch (trunk rebase 2010-08-10).

r+a=me

Comment 10

[David Dahl :ddahl]

Attachment: Proposed patch (trunk rebase 2010-08-19 [ddahl])

rebased - problem in properties file

Comment 11

[David Dahl :ddahl]

None of the tests run with this patch applied. perhaps I rebased it wrong?

Comment 12

[Patrick Walton (:pcwalton)]

Attachment: Proposed patch, version 1.1.

Comment 13

[David Dahl :ddahl]

after the next push we will have to rebase this again and then push it.

Comment 14

[David Dahl :ddahl]

(In reply to comment #13)
> after the next push we will have to rebase this again and then push it.

nevermind - wrong bug.

Comment 15

[David Dahl :ddahl]

http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/d35447bc512e

Comment 16

[Alfred Kayser]

postmortem review nit: the clear menuitem should not have buttonType="clear", but something like id="hud-clear".