983600 - Place the Inspector first in the list of tools (i.e. before the web console)

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 991810

(DevTools :: General, defect)

Description

[Joe Walker [:jwalker]]

Currently the tool ordering is: [ Console | Inspector | Debugger | ... ]
I think the ordering should be: [ Inspector | Console | Debugger | ... ]

Reasons for changing the order:

1. HTML/CSS are more basic skills than JS so we should present them first
2. Jeff's stats showed that there are more users of the inspector than the
   console (which kind of follows from 1)
3. That's what the other tools do
4. It helps defeat self-XSS because the key-sequence to jump to the web-console
   (CTRL+ALT+K) is more complex than the key-sequence for devtools in general
   (F12) - sounds nuts but I think this makes a difference
5. The web console can have scary messages on it and it's going to take us a
   while to get a landing screen
6. You can now get to the console all the time using ESC

Reasons for not doing it:

1. Change frustrates people
2. JavaScript is cool

Comment 1

[Girish Sharma [:Optimizer]]

(In reply to Joe Walker [:jwalker] from comment #0)

I agree overall but ..

> Currently the tool ordering is: [ Console | Inspector | Debugger | ... ]
> I think the ordering should be: [ Inspector | Console | Debugger | ... ]
> 
> Reasons for changing the order:
> 
> 1. HTML/CSS are more basic skills than JS so we should present them first
> 2. Jeff's stats showed that there are more users of the inspector than the
>    console (which kind of follows from 1)

That might be because the entry point to Inspector is directly exposed in the main UI of Firefox (Context menu) and not because Inspector is more used than Console. This makes a lot of difference. I have personally seen people opening the devtools (even for using just console) via the context menu entry, and then switching to the desired tool.

> 3. That's what the other tools do
> 4. It helps defeat self-XSS because the key-sequence to jump to the
> web-console
>    (CTRL+ALT+K) is more complex than the key-sequence for devtools in general
>    (F12) - sounds nuts but I think this makes a difference
> 5. The web console can have scary messages on it and it's going to take us a
>    while to get a landing screen
> 6. You can now get to the console all the time using ESC
> 
> Reasons for not doing it:
> 
> 1. Change frustrates people

I think this change is subtle enough for people to complain :) (since anyways we are not touching the shortcut keys or anything)

> 2. JavaScript is cool

Comment 2

[Jeff Griffiths (:canuckistani) (:⚡︎)]

(In reply to Girish Sharma [:Optimizer] from comment #1)
> (In reply to Joe Walker [:jwalker] from comment #0)
> 
> I agree overall but ..
> 
> > Currently the tool ordering is: [ Console | Inspector | Debugger | ... ]
> > I think the ordering should be: [ Inspector | Console | Debugger | ... ]
> > 
> > Reasons for changing the order:
> > 
> > 1. HTML/CSS are more basic skills than JS so we should present them first
> > 2. Jeff's stats showed that there are more users of the inspector than the
> >    console (which kind of follows from 1)
> 
> That might be because the entry point to Inspector is directly exposed in
> the main UI of Firefox (Context menu) and not because Inspector is more used
> than Console. This makes a lot of difference. I have personally seen people
> opening the devtools (even for using just console) via the context menu
> entry, and then switching to the desired tool.

This is true, but the console isn't left out either, it can now be exposed in split view from ay other tool. I would also like to resolve bug 974550 so that, if a developer commonly uses the inspector and the console together they will not have to re-open the split console every time.

Comment 3

[Brian Grinstead [:bgrins]]

Inspector is now the first tool in the list with Bug 991810 landing