46277 - Optionally show dialog for JS errors in document

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(SeaMonkey :: General, enhancement, P3)

Description

[shrirang khanzode]

Seperating this RFE from bug 4263. 

Matthew's comments from bug 4263:

If an application on my OS falls over, I expect a dialog from my OS which tells 
me what happened and (roughly, at least) why it happened. This applies whether 
or 
not I happen to be the author of the app (usually, of course, I'm not).

And if a JavaScript-using app on a Web page falls over, I expect exactly the 
same 
thing -- a dialog from my browser which tells me what happened and (roughly, at 
least) why it happened. This applies whether or not I happen to be the author of 
the page (usually, of course, I'm not).

The only difference here is that with JavaScript, unlike a compiled executable, 
we have a fair chance of being able to continue after a transitory error -- so 
we 
can give the user the option of continuing or not continuing. This is what IE 
does, and it's very handy on sites (like Hotmail) which contain screeds of 
JavaScript with a very occasional bug.

If a page gets completely sozzled by faulty JavaScript, I'm not going to notice 
a 
small change in the status bar; my mind is going to be on other things (like, 
what the smeg's this page doing?). I need more obvious feedback than a status 
bar 
change.

If you really want, have a checked-by-default `Warn me about future errors on 
this page' checkbox on the dialog (the checkbox would apply only until the user 
navigated to a different page).

Comment 1

[ekrock's old account (dead)]

We're past the deadline for approving new features to be implemented by 
Netscape staff, so I'm marking this Future for now. 

Some background: in early versions of Nav, an error alert would pop up every 
time a JS error occurred on the page. Ultimately users grew to hate this, so we 
switched to the paradigm of putting an error message in the status bar (and 
putting more detailed info in the JavaScript Console) precisely because most 
users didn't *want* to know if an error occurred, but the power JavaScript 
developers could still check the status bar and then bring up the console if 
they wanted more info.

I'm sure that typical users want JS errors to be silent. However, your idea for 
a preference that would turn on user-friendly error dialogs is an interesting 
one. We can explore this as a possible enhancement request for future releases. 
Any further info you could add in this bug report about what IE does and why you 
like the extra info would be great.

Changing summary from "user friendly msgs in response to page errors (cf error 
console)" to "Enhanced JS error handling: optional user friendly msgs in 
response to page errors (cf error console)."

Comment 2

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

From memory, IE has a dialog which looks something like this:

A script error has occurred on this page.
Line: {line number}
Error: {terse reason}

Do you want to continue running scripts on this page?

[[Continue]] [ Stop ]

It also has a checkbox in the `Advanced' tab of the prefs dialog, which (if 
checked) puts a `Debug' button in this dialog too (for opening a JScript IDE or 
whatever).

The only thing that's wrong with this dialog is (as I said) the lack of the 
checkbox to hide the dialog for future errors in the document, and the fact that 
it refers to a page rather than a document.

Shortening summary. Design following shortly ...

Comment 3

[Keyser Sose]

Adding [RFE] to Summary.

Comment 4

[Jeremy M. Dolan]

See also bug 95898, which is an RFE for support of 4xp
javascript.console.open_on_error

I find it odd mpt is REQUESTING a dialog here. This RFE is probably mutually
exclusive with adding a status bar icon for errors (bug 47128).

While icons are much cuter, a dialog is probably better here, so the user knows
that the web app has broken functionality, rather then having to notice and
click a little icon.

Comment 5

[Christopher Hoess (gone)]

See the last few paragraphs of 
<URL:http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2002Jun/0064>. 
Experience suggests that popping up a dialog on Javascript errors would 
be very painful for the user, and they are likely to blame the application 
rather than the webpage. With that in mind, I'm resolving this WONTFIX in 
favor of bug 47128. If you have a really compelling argument for why a 
dialog is better, reopen...

Comment 6

[Jeremy M. Dolan]

It would be nice if maybe  about:javascript  or  javascript:  URLs opened the
console, so you could add a personal toolbar bookmark to access it with one
click. Is something like that a possible workaround for developers?

Comment 7

[Bill Mason]

*** Bug 218734 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***