1495856 - Expose getCachedFront on RootFront (as TargetMixin.getCachedFront)

Status: REOPENED

(DevTools :: Framework, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau]]

Bug 1222047 introduced a regression where we no longer reset preferences being set by the toolbox on toolbox close, but only once its client is destroyed.
It prevented this code from being called:
  https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/6ddb5fb144993fb5de044e2e8d900d7643b98a4d/devtools/client/framework/toolbox.js#3074-3078

Luca submitted a patch in bug 1299001 to mitigate that, but we should probably expose an API on target to retrieve fronts only if they were already created!
So that on toolbox destroy, we could call this API instead of having to manually store any reference of the preference front.

Comment 1

[Yulia Startsev [:yulia] OOO until July 2026]

this might be linked to https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1495386

Comment 2

[Yulia Startsev [:yulia] OOO until July 2026]

This was partially addressed by for targets: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1508660

We can add the same solution for global fronts as needed.

Comment 3

[Yulia Startsev [:yulia] OOO until July 2026]

This is done. ah wrong bug

Comment 4

[Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau]]

All targets got a getCachedTarget method exposed as part of bug 1508660.
But it would be nice to also introduce this API onto RootFront:
https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/d061ba55ac76f41129618d638f4ef674303ec103/devtools/shared/fronts/targets/target-mixin.js#217

As RootFront also exposes getFront and you would easily imagine that both Targets and RootFronts would expose the exact same API:
https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/d061ba55ac76f41129618d638f4ef674303ec103/devtools/shared/fronts/root.js#429-445