654917 - Make the new about:memory page use XUL tree instead of ASCII trees.

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Toolkit :: about:memory, defect)

Description

[Wes Kocher (:KWierso) (Not reading bugmail; email directly if needed)]

[23:16]	<Mossop>	njn: Any reason you used an ascii-art tree in about:memory rather than a xul tree?
	<njn>	Mossop: because I knew how to do an ascii-art tree? :)
	Mossop: would a xul tree cut and paste nicely into a text buffer?
[23:17]	<Mossop>	No
	But it would be expandable and look a hwole lot prettier!
	<njn>	Mossop: that's a crucial use case
	<Mossop>	Could easily make a copy button
	<KWierso>	couldn't you listen for some clipboard event and add in text versions?
[23:18]	<njn>	feel free to file a bug :)

Comment 1

[Nicholas Nethercote [inactive]]

Some properties of the current ascii-art that need to be preserved:

- Cut and paste must be nice.

- Vertical alignment must be nice -- eg. right-justify numbers.

Comment 2

[Nicholas Nethercote [inactive]]

Some suggestions from a commenter on my blog:

1. make the tree edge color a very light gray
2. make the parens around the percentages a very light gray
3. make the all the leading 0′s on the integer part a very light gray
4. make the — a lighter color
5. make the (N omitted) a lighter color
6. make any line with 0 MB completely a very light gray
7. on mouse hover, the current node and all the ancestors of the node should be highlighted

Number 7 isn't possible with ascii art, AFAIK.

Comment 3

[Nicholas Nethercote [inactive]]

I think bug 719335 is a better way to go -- it introduces the collapsible/expandable property while retaining the nice cut-and-paste property.  Also, I image rendering a XUL tree would require more memory, which is something to be avoided in about:memory.