1461495 - HTTP client UI for devtools

Status: NEW

(DevTools :: Netmonitor, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Martin Thomson [:mt:]]

Consider adding a "REST" API UI to devtools.

It's relatively easy to use developer tools to construct some types of HTTP request programmatically, but others can be a little cumbersome.  For instance, if you are interacting with a "REST" API, building the JSON for a request body can be tricky.  

This would be part of helping developers manage their servers, check that the API is working correctly.

I've used https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/restclient/ in the past, which should give you an idea of the sort of capabilities that this might provide.  However, that addon requires a pretty large set of permissions, and cannot benefit from integration with devtools.

Where devtools integration might be of benefit:

 - copy a network request into the request UI
 - copy a response body into the request UI body
 - click a link and have that populated in the request UI URL
 - integrate the network request/response UI for viewing results
 - completion for common HTTP header field names
 - the network tab would record the history of requests, but it might be helpful to be able to "save" a request somehow

Comment 1

[:Harald Kirschner :digitarald]

ni? honza who probably knows about duplicates for this as it probably came up in the past.

This seems like a good Edit & Resend 2.0 functionality, providing the UI more prominent and for sending your own requests while re-using all the inspection capabilities that the network panel already has.

Related, Postman is very popular for Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/postman/fhbjgbiflinjbdggehcddcbncdddomop?hl=en

:mt, have you used `Edit and Resend` in Network panel?

Comment 2

[Martin Thomson [:mt:]]

I have, but there are probably a few things to improve along the lines of the above.  Most important being making it a top-level UI on the network panel (so that it can be used to initiate requests without copying other requests).  And maybe making it viewable along with existing requests so that you can copy content from them.

Comment 3

[Jan Honza Odvarko [:Honza] (always need-info? me)]

I agree that any such feature should be built on top of the existing "Edit and Resend".

> Most important being making it a top-level UI on the network panel
I like this idea.

We don't have anything like that on the roadmap for now, but I'd love
to have something like "Edit and Resend 2.0"

Honza

Comment 4

[:Harald Kirschner :digitarald]

(Added to the backlog)