1418850 - The multiple "Copy" actions are confusing

Status: NEW

(DevTools :: Console, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Oriol Brufau [:Oriol]]

1. Open the console
2. Enter this code: "aaaaaaaaa_bbb_aaaaaaaaaaa"
3. Right-click the returned value, there are two copy options:
 - "Copy message". Huh? Which message are you talking about?
 - "Copy object". Huh? It's a primitive string, not an object.
 In fact it seems the only difference is that the former adds a newline at the end.
4. Now select only the _bbb_ part and right-click to copy the selection. Still the same options as before. Which one refers to the selected text? No clue, but it's the former one.

Please improve the naming of these options so it's clear what they do. Currently, when I want to copy something, I always lose some seconds thinking about it, and then I end up choosing the wrong one...

Comment 1

[Nicolas Chevobbe [:nchevobbe]]

One idea I had at some point is that those 2 actions, on top of being renamed, could also draw an outline on the target element (so, the entire line for the message, and the specific primitive/variable for copy object)

Comment 2

[:Harald Kirschner :digitarald]

Object seems to be the most confusing part here as it implies something very different in the Console.

Just brainstorming, but a different take would be Copy log line and Copy message part.

Comment 3

[Nicolas Chevobbe [:nchevobbe]]

One thing we could do for Copy Object would be to get a string representation:

Copy { a: 1, …}
Copy [1, 2, 3, …]
Copy "my logged st…"
Copy "34"

Comment 4

[:Harald Kirschner :digitarald]

One thing we could do for Copy Object would be to get a string representation:

I thought about that too. Only caveat I came up with was that the first string in a "hello world" log would show "hello …" without any indicator for how long the copied part is; but that seems minor.