276769 - View source for XML + XSLT documents is inconsistent

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Toolkit :: View Source, defect)

Description

[Joachim Noreiko]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040910
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040910

An XML document that has been transformed to HTML with XSLT has in effect two
sources: the original XML, and the HTML that the browser is rendering.

View -> Page source displays the XML
Right-click -> View selection source displays the HTML

Both behaviours are desirable, but it might be less confusing and more useful to
add a second item to the view menu.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

this is by design - view selection source displays the DOM of the selection. 
Right Click -> View Page Source gives you the xml markup from the context menu,
so you can decide which you want.

Comment 2

[Joachim Noreiko]

I agree that both forms of view are desirable -- my point is that there is an
inconsistency in the UI, and that this is bad design.
Right Click -> View Page Source gives me only a part of the page, unless I've
done Select All first.

Comment 3

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

This is the case any time the DOM and the page source differ.  Not just for
XSLT, but also for pages with script modifications of the DOM.

Invalid, unless you have a concrete suggestion for improving the UI.  I can't
think of a reasonable way to express "view generated source of the whole
document" in a reasonable way in a menu item.

Comment 4

[Scott A. Colcord]

I'd agree with the desirability of this feature.  The "View Source" command isn't targeted at average users, and for authors/developers, I'd say that the final DOM is as interesting as the original source; perhaps more so.  I know that I've wanted to see it on many occasions, and didn't know about this use of "View Selection Source" until reading this bug.

I'd also agree that it is not immediately obvious how to present this in the UI in a non-confusing way; it could be that this functionally would be more properly reserved for a developer add-on.  However, that doesn't invalidate the value of the suggestion.  Reopening for discussion.

Comment 5

[Sam Sneddon [:gsnedders]]

I think what is needed here is consistency. How about "View Generated Source" as a menu item (in both places?)?

Comment 6

[Arun Prasannan (polar)]

I don't think another menu item is required. As #4 points out, it's useful to advanced users, who in my opinion shouldn't have any trouble finding it as it is.

Comment 7

[Philip Chee]

SeaMonkey trunk is now using toolkit viewsource.