754481 - Developer Tools should have a toolbar menubutton for easy access

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(DevTools :: General, defect)

Description

[:Felipe Gomes (needinfo for replies!)]

Accessing the developer tools right now takes 1 too many clicks, and also my brain melts when I switch between Win/Mac and forget about the different menu placement of the two platforms.

I believe web developers would like the easy of access by having them placed in a toolbar dropdown menu, like some of the traditional developer tools add-ons used to the in the past.

Thoughts? I've even got the patch ready ;) And a screenshot.  We'd just need to create a proper icon for it (which might be easier said than done, as I'm not sure if we have an icon at the moment that represents our developer tools).

Comment 1

[:Felipe Gomes (needinfo for replies!)]

Attachment: Patch

Comment 2

[:Felipe Gomes (needinfo for replies!)]

Attachment: Screenshot

Screenshot, using a temporary icon

Comment 3

[:Felipe Gomes (needinfo for replies!)]

Forgot to mention, but it should be obvious, that the button won't be there by default. But it will be available at the toolbar customization palette for whoever wants to grab it and drop at the toolbar.

Comment 4

[Paul Rouget [:paul]]

Comment on attachment 623335 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch

Felipe, we are working on a dedicated toolbar. But I don't think an additional button would be too much. I like it :)

Comment 5

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

I'm wondering if that isn't going to be giving users too many options to choose from. Do we want to hide this button dynamically if the global toolbar is enabled?

There's also the notion of some button palettes for australis, but have no idea when that's arriving. Wondering if we shouldn't wait for that rather than adding toolbar buttons now?

Comment 6

[Dave Camp (:dcamp)]

(In reply to Rob Campbell [:rc] (:robcee) from comment #5)
> I'm wondering if that isn't going to be giving users too many options to
> choose from.

This is hardly a paralyzing choice.  You only find it from a panel you only open if you're actively looking around for as many options as possible.

> Do we want to hide this button dynamically if the global
> toolbar is enabled?

The global toolbar isn't really a complete replacement for the web development toolbar.  The web developer menu is added to by various addons etc. that might not show up on the web dev toolbar, and there are a few other options (error console, view source) that I don't imagine we'll be putting on the web developer toolbar either.

We don't hide the web developer menu by default when the global toolbar is enabled, I wouldn't see a reason to hide quick access to it either.

But yeah, if australis is going to kill customizable toolbars then maybe we don't want to give people something nice that we'll have to take away.

Comment 7

[Dave Camp (:dcamp)]

(In reply to Dave Camp (:dcamp) from comment #6)

> 
> The global toolbar isn't really a complete replacement for the web
> development toolbar.  The web developer menu is added to by various addons

Err, I meant "for the web developer menu"

Comment 8

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

Comment on attachment 623335 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch

+function buildDevToolsToolbarMenu(target) {
+  if (target._menuPopulated)
+    return;
+
+  let reference = document.getElementById("menuWebDeveloperPopup");
+
+  for (let item of reference.childNodes) {
+    let copy = item.cloneNode();
+    target.appendChild(copy);
+  }
+
+  target._menuPopulated = true;
+}
+

This can clone nodes but doesn't take into account their checked states. If a user drags the web developer button into the toolbar, checked states will be representative of when the drag happened, i.e., you could have a checked Inspector menu item in this list that doesn't get updated when the Inspector is deactivated.

Comment 9

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

dcamp: I agree that this might be useful and convenient. After thinking about it, it's nice being able to put things on the main toolbar.

I'm a little worried about how we're going to deal with menuitem check states in all of these various bits of UI though.

Comment 10

[:Felipe Gomes (needinfo for replies!)]

Rob, I thought that at first too, but turns out the checked states work properly. Turns out the checked state is set on the <command> and not on the menuitems, so all the menus properly reflect it at the same time.

Comment 11

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

Comment on attachment 623335 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch

Hm, ok. One other question: You're cloning the ids of these menuitems as well? That could be a problem.

Comment 12

[:Felipe Gomes (needinfo for replies!)]

oh yeah right, I need to handle that

Comment 13

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

Comment on attachment 623335 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch

f+ with the duplicate ids taken care of.

Comment 14

[:Felipe Gomes (needinfo for replies!)]

I will need icons to proceed here!

Comment 15

[Paul Rouget [:paul]]

In the toolbar button, I see:
> onpopupshowing="onWebDeveloperMenuShowing()"

I don't think this is needed.

Also, we designed an icon: https://bug760446.bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=636696
It will be available once bug 764555 is fixed.

Comment 16

[Paul Rouget [:paul]]

Attachment: v2

Comment 17

[Paul Rouget [:paul]]

Attachment: screenshot

we need specific icons

Comment 18

[Paul Rouget [:paul]]

Stephen, can you help for the icons?

Comment 19

[:Felipe Gomes (needinfo for replies!)]

Comment on attachment 623336 [details]
Screenshot

Pretty sure I talked to Limi about this some time ago and he was fine with the idea as long as it goes into the customization palette and not on the toolbar by default

Comment 20

[Paul Rouget [:paul]]

Attachment: mac

Comment 21

[Paul Rouget [:paul]]

Attachment: windows

Comment 22

[Paul Rouget [:paul]]

Attachment: linux 24

Comment 23

[Paul Rouget [:paul]]

Attachment: linux 16

Comment 24

[Geoff Lankow (:darktrojan)]

Bump.

Comment 25

[Paul Rouget [:paul]]

This has been fixed in Australis.