Open Bug 908112 Opened 11 years ago Updated 2 years ago

Please make system-wide context of browser console obvious via UI (CTRL+SHIFT+J opening browser console sets up Chrome converts for confusion with web console)

Categories

(DevTools :: General, enhancement, P3)

enhancement

Tracking

(Not tracked)

People

(Reporter: anaran, Unassigned)

References

Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:25.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/25.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 20130821004005

Steps to reproduce:

Wanted to extract some website content via JS console for bug reporting
Just hit CTRL+SHIFT+J in the belief to open a "JS" console (Web Console).



Actual results:

Got myself very confused why results did not compute vs some JS commands in Google Chrome.
I then found I had opened a Browser Console instead.




Expected results:

While I am willing to accept this as my own fault it is likely to happen to other Google Chrome converts too.

In
https://support.mozilla.org/de/kb/Tastaturkuerzel?redirectlocale=en-US&as=u&redirectslug=Keyboard+shortcuts&utm_source=inproduct
it is written:

Web-Konsole 	Strg + Umschalttaste + K
...
Fehlerkonsole 	Strg + Umschalttaste + J

That's basically OK, although Fehlerkonsole should probably be Browser-Konsole instead.

I don't have the chutzpa to suggest a keyboard shortcut flip.

But perhaps it would be possible to add a hint to the browser console that it execute in the context of Firefox itself.

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/08/the-browser-console/
documents thiswell:
"While the Web Console and Browser Console look the same, they operate in very different environments. The Web Console only interacts with the current Firefox tab content and is limited by the browser’s security model. The Browser Console will execute in the context of Firefox itself, with system-level privileges. "

But it never occured to me I had to read the docs, since the console I got looked perfectly OK to me, it just "acted strange".
Component: Untriaged → Developer Tools
OS: Windows XP → All
Hardware: x86 → All
Version: 25 Branch → Trunk
Depends on: 1116276
Product: Firefox → DevTools

We have similar problem with MBT (Multi-process Browser Toolbox) these days. It looks like folks don't know that MBT can use used to debug all processes.

Some kind of indication (or better on-boarding UI?) could teach users what is the current debugging target for Browser Console or Browser Toolbox entirely.

Honza

Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Type: defect → enhancement
Ever confirmed: true
Priority: -- → P3
Severity: normal → S3
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