782593 - [meta] devtools window & framework

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(DevTools :: General, defect)

Description

[Paul Rouget [:paul]]

Meta bug for all the API/mechanisms/UI bugs needed to build a generic devtools framework and to build an standalone window to host the Firefox Devtools.

Comment 1

[Paul Rouget [:paul]]

For now, the dependency list is just used as a "related bugs" list. We might want to WONTFIX/DUPE most of them as we design the framework APIs and mechanisms.

Comment 2

[Paul Rouget [:paul]]

Here is a description of this one-window/framework project: https://etherpad.mozilla.org/devtools-framework (etherpad, this might get deleted at some point. We will move to a wiki page once we have a better understand of what we want to build).

Comment 3

[Dils]

Here's the latest update on the UI:

http://www.briandils.com/mozilla/FFxDevTools-Wireframes-v1.2.pdf

Its a work in progress, but please add comments to this bug

Comment 4

[Rob Campbell [:rc] (:robcee)]

will there be the ability to make one tab/panel persistent? We need to be able to display the Web Console in addition to another tool (or tools). The Web Console is a special case here. It's probably the only one people might want available while using any of the other tools.

Also would be very nice to be able to have more than one arbitrary tool active at a time. We might want to display the Debugger and the Inspector at the same time for example.

One use case to support this is if you're inspecting a web page and want to quickly look up a script that's associated with a widget or some action. The Debugger is a pretty decent script viewer.

Another example use case for a feature we don't support yet: Event Debugging. We may want to use the Inspector to display events associated with a particular node and add breakpoints to the debugger there. Toggling back and forth could be cumbersome.

Some of these cases might make sense if we blow up the individual components for each tool. The breakpoints panel could also exist in the Inspector, for example.

Comment 5

[Paul Rouget [:paul]]

(In reply to Rob Campbell [:rc] (:robcee) from comment #4)
> will there be the ability to make one tab/panel persistent? We need to be
> able to display the Web Console in addition to another tool (or tools). The
> Web Console is a special case here. It's probably the only one people might
> want available while using any of the other tools.

No. We don't know what to do here yet. It's one of the issue we didn't manage to solve yet.

> Also would be very nice to be able to have more than one arbitrary tool
> active at a time. We might want to display the Debugger and the Inspector at
> the same time for example.

This will be impossible.

> One use case to support this is if you're inspecting a web page and want to
> quickly look up a script that's associated with a widget or some action. The
> Debugger is a pretty decent script viewer.

Just click on the debugger tab.

> Another example use case for a feature we don't support yet: Event
> Debugging. We may want to use the Inspector to display events associated
> with a particular node and add breakpoints to the debugger there. Toggling
> back and forth could be cumbersome.

By Inspector, you mean Markup View? If so, yes, we can't have them both at the same time.

We are doing some compromises here. I believe that the cost of being able to have 2 tools is too high compared to the benefits. Only the Web Console case is problematic.

Comment 6

[Paul Rouget [:paul]]

This meta bug is not interesting anymore.