1704519 - [meta] Accidental use of F12

Status: NEW

(DevTools :: General, task, P3)

Description

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

Tracking bug for all F12 related work

Honza

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'DevTools::Netmonitor' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please revert this change in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 3

[[:nickname]JN]

Might I ask why there has been no progress in fixing this problem? For, is it not an easy win, so to speak? Let me explain.

Mozilla wants to increase the appeal of Firefox to less technical users. This change would do that (by removing something that presumably puts such user off). At the same time, an annoyance for savvier users would be removed. Is there a worry that developers would be upset if, say, <shift> were added to the shortcut? Can a discussion at least not be had?

Comment 4

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

(In reply to JN from comment #3)

Might I ask why there has been no progress in fixing this problem? For, is it not an easy win, so to speak? Let me explain.

Mozilla wants to increase the appeal of Firefox to less technical users. This change would do that (by removing something that presumably puts such user off). At the same time, an annoyance for savvier users would be removed. Is there a worry that developers would be upset if, say, <shift> were added to the shortcut? Can a discussion at least not be had?

Sorry for the lack of updates, we are definitely working on this in the coming weeks and implementation should start soon.
As to "why no progress": team is small, and even if we want for this to happen it is not a top priority compared to breaking bugs, mandatory refactor etc...

Is there a worry that developers would be upset if, say, <shift> were added to the shortcut? Can a discussion at least not be had?

We want to keep the F12 shortcut available, because it's the main entry point for devtools and we don't want to create friction for users already relying on this. But we think that making the F12 shortcut optional and adding an onboarding step for new users is a good compromise and that's what we are going to implement. Edge implemented something similar a few months ago, and it seems like a good approach.

Comment 5

[[:nickname]JN]

Thanks. Just what is being implemented, though? The asking of new users whether or not they want F12 to behave as it does at present?

Comment 6

[[:nickname]JN]

'[W]e are definitely working on this in the coming weeks and implementation should start soon.' I am not on the 'developer' edition of Firefox and yet I feel that time is falsifying that claim.

Comment 7

[[:nickname]JN]

I, and I imagine many other users, continue to be vexed by the problem. New users who hit F12 accidentally will wonder what has happened (and there are reports of that on the web) and experienced users, especially those on laptops, will continue to hit the wrong key by accident and get irritated as a result.

Comment 8

[[:nickname]JN]

I am sorry, but will this problem ever receive a solution?

Comment 9

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Hi,

This is still in the team's backlog, but I didn't have time to implement this yet and this is not really high priority.
I would also really like this to make progress, and I'm sorry about that.

Just what is being implemented, though? The asking of new users whether or not they want F12 to behave as it does at present?

There are two main things we want to add:

• show an onboarding popup for first time users when they press F12 so that they can decide if it should open DevTools or not
• add an option in DevTools settings (and Firefox settings potentially) to decide if F12 should open devtools or not

Comment 10

[[:nickname]JN]

Three years and counting for this attempt to disable, or change, . . a keyboard shortcut.

Comment 11

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

(In reply to [:nickname]JN from comment #10)

Three years and counting for this attempt to disable, or change, . . a keyboard shortcut.

Since 2023 there is a checkbox in the DevTools settings to disable the shortcut.

Comment 12

[[:nickname]JN]

@descottes

For some reason (I do not get on well with Bugzilla) I received no notification of your comment (though Bugzilla seems to have the correct email for me). Hence this very late reply.

I find: on Windows, F12 no longer brings up the devtools; on Linux, it does; but on Linux I did manage to locate the preference you mentioned - a preference one finds by pressing F12 and then hunting around. I am please that at least that preference exists now. Is it meant to be toggled off (=no F12) by default, on all platforms? (As I say: it seem disabled on Windows but not on Linux.)

Comment 13

[[:nickname]JN]

Let me add the following observations that just now I have made.

1. On Firefox ESR 128.9.0, on Linux: F12 does nothing (which is what I want).

2. On Firefox ESR 128.9.0, on Windows: F12 brings up the flashing cacophony, i.e. the devtools, though I think that one of the myriad of preferences has to do with flashing and there is the preference - which just now I toggled - to disable the F12 shortcut. I note also that finding the button to open the devtools settings was harder on this particular version of Firefox (Windows, ESR 128.9.0) than on other versions (other versions of Firefox, other OSs). Or so it seems. It's all jolly confusing.

Comment 14

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

There's nothing specific to Linux here, although the keyboard shortcut might be consumed by another application than Firefox, or disabled somewhere else in the OS.

Regarding the access to the DevTools settings, I don't think anything changed in the last few years. The ... icon is on the top right of the toolbox, otherwise the shortcut to open DevTools settings while DevTools are open is F1.

The plan is still to disable F12 and devtools for new users, but for now there's only the setting we mentioned.