Firefox Developer Tools

Developer Tools for the Open Web

Weekly developer tools meeting, Feb 16

The weekly meeting minutes are up on the wiki. Here are some highlights:

  • Firebug has integrated the Source Editor, but it turns out that this doesn’t work in SeaMonkey.
  • Victor has a Blender importer for Tilt.
  • Some new commands have landed for the command line (tilt with screenshot, edit and pref not far behind)
  • Panos is experimenting with attaching the debugger to B2G
  • Christian Heilmann reflected that we need to communicate more about why the built in tools are different from Firebug and where they’re going.
  • I posted a blog post about the developer tools roadmap for 2012.

That’s it for this week! Come join us next week.

Weekly developer tools update, Feb 9

Here are the highlights from this week’s developer tools meeting.

  • Panos is now a devtools module peer!
  • Firebug 1.10a3 coming tomorrow
    • extension API should be roughly complete and stable
    • multi-line command line is based on Firefox’s SourceEditor, which means it will have syntax highlighting
  • Firebug is considering moving to GitHub
  • Pseudo-class lock API has landed. UI work is underway.
  • Paul has been experimenting with a new way to view the page inspector. Here’s a mockup with more tools.
  • The Style Editor has been updated so that saving to local files (file:// URLs) is immediate (no file dialog)
  • Cedric posted a video of the Style Editor showing inline documentation for CSS properties
  • The textarea fallback for the SourceEditor has been removed
  • The JavaScript Debugger that has been in development the past few months has landed. It’s not ready for real use, but this is the first step. It’s available in Nightly if you set devtools.debugger.enabled to true.

As usual, the complete meeting notes are on the wiki.

Weekly developer tools update, Feb 2

Apparently, the groundhog says we’re in for another 6 weeks of winter. With this week’s release of Firefox 10, we’re also in for about 6 weeks of beta for the next Firefox and 6 weeks of development for Firefox 13. Follow along with our development by joining our meetings or reading the notes below from the latest meeting.

  • A new Script Tools team has been created. The new team is led by Rob Campbell. Victor, Mihai and Panos are the first members of this new team.
  • Firebug 1.10a2 is out and it’s restartless and features delayed loading.
  • Firebug also has a new API for creating restartless Firebug extensions that use the AMD module format used by Firebug now.
  • Highlighter updates are in the works. See them in action. Changes to the toolbar and new features for the infobar. More to come, and we’d love feedback!
  • We have a fix in Firefox 12 for right-to-left locale users of the Style Rule View. We’re working on getting that in Firefox 11.
  • Cedric presented some new ideas for the Style Editor including a generator for new stylesheets and the ability to do more with context of stylesheets.
  • Panos has put up a video showing the debugger progress.
  • Thanks to contributor “VD” for working on making the Source Editor themeable with CSS within Firefox.
  • Firefox 10 input on the new developer tools has been very positive. Congratulations to the whole team for a huge release!
  • Firefox Aurora and Beta are now advertising the developer tools on the home page

 

Weekly developer tools update, Jan 26

Here are some high level points from the weekly meeting:

  • Firebug 1.10 alpha 2 is coming tomorrow, and it’s restartless! And, almost all of the new Firebug is lazily initialized.
  • Firebug 1.9.1 with a crash fix is planned for next week
  • Many Tilt improvements have landed, including the ability to remove a node visually using the “x” key (the node is not removed from the DOM, just from the 3D view). The 3D view also now has a cool animation when you leave 3D mode.
  • GCLI (Command Line) has been turned off again in Nightly. The plan is for it to reappear in the developer toolbar. Thanks for the feedback!
  • The Page Inspector element highlighter now follows the element around if it moves on the page. This improvement will land in Firefox 11
  • New mockups of the Web Console UI
  • Style Editor’s filtering by stylesheet name has been removed. The plan is to put the search box back in Firefox 13 as a search in the stylesheet bug.
  • Firefox 10 is coming out on Tuesday and will raise the profile of the developer tools
  • I am working on a blog post about recent input we’ve gotten, and I summarized some of it during the meeting.

That’s it for this week. See you next week!

Weekly developer tools update, Jan 19

Here are the highlights from this week’s meeting:

  • If you’re running Firefox Nightly, you should get Firebug 1.10a1
  • the GCLI command line  is being turned back off in the Web Console, but it will come back in the Developer Toolbar feature that is coming later
  • Web Console is undergoing restyling
  • Sonny has picked up the e10s patch for the Web Console, which we’re hoping will ultimately help the Web Console become remotable
  • Style Editor transitions have landed
  • Script Debugger is partway through superreview, and Panos has posted a document about the architecture

Those are the highlights for this week. Check out the full outline on the wiki, and join us next Thursday and say hi!

Weekly Developer Tools Update, Jan 12

Here are the highlights from the latest weekly meeting:

  • Firebug 1.9 has been released!
  • Read about Honza’s plans for Firebug 1.10 (note also that if you’re running Firefox Nightly, you should use Firebug 1.10)
  • The Command Line has been turned on in Nightly! Try it out, and let us know what you think (and what kinds of commands you want!)
  • This quarter (code named Pegasus):
    • Respond to input on the tools shipping in Firefox 10 and 11
    • Get debugger ready to be turned on in 14
    • pseudo-class lock
    • Specification for the timeline view
  • Paul, Rob and Stephen met in Toronto this week to discuss how the tools will glue together and scale to handle more tools. Feedback can go on an etherpad.

 

Weekly Developer Tools Update, Dec 15

The developer tools weekly meeting notes are in the usual place on the wiki. Here are some highlights:

Note that there will a meeting next week, but there will be no meeting on December 29th.

Weekly Developer Tools update, Dec 8

This week’s meeting was well-attended and interesting. We actually ran over our hour-long slot, which is unusual, but the meeting didn’t seem that long! A few notes from the meeting:

  • Firebug 1.9 beta 4 next week. Honza has been working tirelessly to track down some memory leaks.
  • Cedric has created a new prototype HTML panel
  • I’ve posted a draft 2012 roadmap and will post more about that here once it’s a bit less drafty.
  • We’ve had more new contributors and more developer tools people that now have level 3 commit access. Congrats to everyone landing new patches!

Join us at 10am Pacific on Thursdays each week to talk about developer tools.