400783 - Display javascript error in the status bar

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Toolbars and Customization, enhancement)

Description

[Prasad Rajapaksha]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0

Display javascript error in the status bar

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1.I don't know But I can send you that javascript file of your browser. I downloaded it.
2.
3.
Actual Results:  
I don't know But I can send you that javascript file of your browser. I downloaded it.

Expected Results:  
Nothing. But show an error found

Comment 1

[Jesse Ruderman]

See also bug 47128, same bug for SeaMonkey.

Comment 2

[Cees T.]

I use Firebug for this - https://addons.mozilla.org/nl/firefox/addon/1843

Maybe that's overkill for the normal user, but why bother having an error console if the user doesn't even know when to check it? IE7 also shows a script error indicator in its status bar.

Comment 3

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

This bug was reported using Firefox 3.0 or older, which is no longer supported. The bug has also not been changed in over 500 days and is still in UNCO.
Reporter, please retest this bug in Firefox 3.6.10 or later using a fresh profile, http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/managing+profiles. If you still see this problem, please update the bug. If you no longer see the bug, please set the resolution to RESOLVED, WORKSFORME.

This is a mass search of unconfirmed bugs that have no activity on them, so if you feel a bug was marked in error, just remove the CLOSEME comment in the whiteboard within the next month.

Comment 4

[Cees T.]

This should be an RFE, unless Netscape 4 did it. It will promote proper code on the web.

Comment 5

[Jesse Ruderman]

The status bar is gone, so it might not be the best place to show errors ;)

Comment 6

[Philip Chee]

Now that Firefox has the web console, not to mention a whole toolbox full of stuff, I'd say this bug is now OBSOLETE/WONTFIX.

Comment 7

[Andrés G. Aragoneses]

(In reply to Philip Chee from comment #6)
> Now that Firefox has the web console, not to mention a whole toolbox full of
> stuff, I'd say this bug is now OBSOLETE/WONTFIX.

IMNSHO the question remains about if the end-user (which may not be a developer) should be notified (at least with a small warning icon) that the page has bugs.

Comment 8

[Filipus Klutiero]

I agree with Andrés. I suggest retitling this to "Allow reporting script errors by default".

It is possible to see JavaScript errors with Firebug by going to the console tab. In fact, whatever tab is active, Firebug should show a red number next to its icon representing the number of errors (if there is any). The problem is that this number occupies about 1 / 100 000th of the screen. I never notice it (and I am 30 years old). As a developer, I can wonder why some JS code is not running only to realize several minutes later that a JS error stopped processing, which is very frustrating.

I now realize this is a recurring issue because of Firefox. Most people probably do not want to know about JavaScript errors, since the vast majority is harmless. But developers should have a way to ask Firefox to prominently report JavaScript errors, either with a big warning, an animation, a popup or a sound.

Comment 9

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

We have developer tools for this.