282598 - DOM inspector's 'find a node' button needs two clicks on the mac when window in background

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Core Graveyard :: Widget: Mac, defect)

Description

[Joachim Noreiko]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041217
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041217

This is possibly an OS limitation.
On Windows, you click the find node button then click in the web page window.
On the mac, the first click appears to do nothing. You need a second click to
actually do something; the first is swallowed by the window gaining focus.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Yes, on Mac the first click on a window must not ever trigger anything in the
window -- it just raises/focuses the window.  Doing anything else would be a
major bug on Mac.

Comment 2

[Joachim Noreiko]

I wonder if there's any way round it. It's rather inconvenient.
Is there any way that the DOM inspecotr can be made to count as a palette?
Selecting a tool and clicking in a document is a one-click action, for example.

Comment 3

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Simon, do you know anything about how this could be done, or whether it's desirable?

Comment 4

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

It is possible to have window-active clicks go through and be handled; Cocoa
apps usually do this, although Apple recommends that you don't do it for
destructive operations (e.g. toolbar Delete button). However, I'd be worried
about suddenly switching this behaviour.

Comment 5

[Joachim Noreiko]

re: 'when window in background' in summary

The window is *always* in the background during this operation -- clicking the
button brings the DOM inspector to the foreground.

Comment 6

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

Bug 182151 is related.

Comment 7

[Joachim Noreiko]

I've just noticed...

when the Bookmarks manager is in the foreground, it's possible to drag the site
icon from the location bar in an inactive window over to the Bookmarks manager,
to add a new bookmark in a specific folder. 

This is desirable behaviour... but it sort of goes against comment #1, no?
Can this sort of thing not be imitated for the DOM inspector?

Comment 8

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

Dragging from background windows is a well-recognized mac behavior.

Comment 9

[Joachim Noreiko]

Could the DOM inspector be made into a floating palette on the mac? It is after
all a window that holds information and settings for the main browser window.
I understand and agree with your concerns about not breaking OS X UI standards,
but at the moment I find this key feature of the DOM inspector to be unusable on
the mac.

Comment 10

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

XUL doesn't have support for floating palettes.

Comment 11

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

> It is after all a window that holds information and settings for the main
> browser window.

Not necessarily -- you cab load a URI directly in Inspector.

Comment 12

[Joachim Noreiko]

Some suggestions:

1. Enable drag and drop from the DOM inspector's Find Node button (in the
background) to any element in the HTML window (in the foreground)
2. Add a status bar button that appears when the current tab is tied to a DOM
inspector window. This would work as the Find Node button does, and cause the
DOM inspector window to mark the clicked element in the element tree.
3. Add a toolbar similar to the find toolbar in Firefox. This could hold a
button as in option 2 above, and also indicate the hierarchy of a clicked
element in a horizontal format (which could be a nice enhancement in itself).

Sorry to harp on about this one, but I find the DOM inspector essential in
working on webpages, and currently unusable on the mac.

Comment 13

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 14

[Joachim Noreiko]

This is still a usability issue on OS X.

Comment 15

[alexander :surkov (:asurkov)]

Btw, blinking does't work as well. I don't know possibly this should be dealt in another bug but it's about 'find node' usability too like this bug is.

CC'ing some DOMi-related people to get opinion about drag&drop feature from comment #12.

Comment 16

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

Blinking is covered by bug 368608.

I'm not sure about the drag and drop to be honest.

Comment 17

[Markus Stange [:mstange]]

This bug would be fixed by bug 392188.

(In reply to comment #1)
> Yes, on Mac the first click on a window must not ever trigger anything in the
> window -- it just raises/focuses the window.  Doing anything else would be a
> major bug on Mac.

This comment is no longer true - in Cocoa applications, buttons default to click-through.