1.4.2 - turn off for only specific sites

[JoJo]

The UI of Firebug 1.4 is very confusing compared to 1.3. I no longer
understand when it is on or off. There's a bug icon in the lower
right, a minimize button, off button, and another bug button in the
upper left when open..... There's too many buttons. Which button do I
click to turn it off for Gmail permanently? It's freezing my browser
each time I check my mail. In 1.3, I used to be able to turn it on/off
on a per-site basis.

[johnjbarton]

The off button is the button you use to turn Firebug off for a site.

jjb

[JoJo]

And to turn it on permanently for a site?

[ebusyness]

Could please refine the button (minimize/ open in new window / off)
order? I think the position of the "off button" is much too
prominent.

While developing/designing I need the minimize & show firebug button
very often - but I always click on the "off button" which is bit
annoying because I didn't intended to do that.
I would prefer this button order: switch off / open in new window /
minimize

[DucDigital]

Yes, correctly, i suggest if posible, please revert back to 1.3 UI.
The off button is too large but not often used while developing.

Also please add the pernament ON for all webpage into the menu because
i can't find any of it until today. after weeks of released 1.4 ...

(FYI: Right Click to the FIREBUG Icon, click ON for All Webpages)

[johnjbarton]

On Aug 16, 9:59 pm, JoJo <tokyot...@gmail.com> wrote:
> And to turn it on permanently for a site?

Just open Firebug. That is all you need to do.

If this fails, it's a bug, not a design issue. Then try Firebug 1.5a21
http://getfirebug.com/releases.

jjb

[johnjbarton]

On Aug 17, 2:59 am, ebusyness <ebusyn...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Could please refine the button (minimize/ open in new window / off)
> order? I think the position of the "off button" is much too
> prominent.

We will remove the "off" label, that will reduce the size of the
button.

>
> While developing/designing I need the minimize & show firebug button
> very often

Then you really should learn Firebug's special control for this exact
purpose. The Firebug Status bar icon is exactly design for this; try
it! It's a nice big button and it alternately opens and minimizes
Firebug. It is wired to F12. Very convenient.

> - but I always click on the "off button" which is bit
> annoying because I didn't intended to do that.
> I would prefer this button order: switch off / open in new window /
> minimize

We will be making the off button smaller and the other two larger.

jjb

[johnjbarton]

On Aug 17, 3:49 am, DucDigital <d...@ducdigital.com> wrote:
> Yes, correctly, i suggest if posible, please revert back to 1.3 UI.
> The off button is too large but not often used while developing.

But it is often used by people not developing but using Firebug to
explore web pages.

The off button will become smaller.

>
> Also please add the pernament ON for all webpage into the menu because
> i can't find any of it until today. after weeks of released 1.4 ...

Actually this feature will be removed in 1.5. In its place we will
have "Activate By Default", see http://code.google.com/p/fbug/issues/detail?id=2220.
It will support using the Off button to blacklist sites.

jjb

[DucDigital]

Off, i heard someone suggest to move it in a different way: ->

now: (Minimize / Windows / Off)

Revert to : (Off/Windows/Minimize)

I dont want to put the firebug off while develop my site.

Most user move their mouse fast enough to pass thorugh the Minimize
button...

Thank you

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[johnjbarton]

On Aug 17, 9:02 am, DucDigital <d...@ducdigital.com> wrote:
> Off, i heard someone suggest to move it in a different way: ->
>
> now: (Minimize / Windows / Off)
>
> Revert to : (Off/Windows/Minimize)

That would just cause a different set of people to complain.

>
> I dont want to put the firebug off while develop my site.
>
> Most user move their mouse fast enough to pass thorugh the Minimize
> button...

Then use the statusbar icon to minimize.

jjb

[DucDigital]

should open a poll. btw, thanks for your effort and looking forward to
the 1.5

[johnjbarton]

1.5a21 is available now: http://getfirebug.com/releases. I would
appreciate your comments on it with regard to activation. I'll try to
get the button sizes fixed for a22.

jjb

[Gidgidonihah]

> That would just cause a different set of people to complain.

So our complaints are less valid because you would have to change it
again? :p
I agree with DucDigital. Have a poll. Or bloat it up a bit and give us
an option of having the 1.3 order.

The 1.3 UI is much more inline with the Firefox UI to have the red x
in the top right to minimize firefox. More so than a down arrow 3rd
from the right.
Close a tab: X. Close the sidebar: X Close firebug: down arrow.

Now you might argue that it's inline with the windows UI (min) (max)
(close). I give you that, but I see it differently.
I close firebug. I don't turn it off. Turning it off is something I'd
rarely do, but I close it all the time. So really it comes down to a
difference in how you see the model.
If this simply isn't something that's going to come back, I wonder how
long before somebody releases that extension that restores it to the
1.3 UI.

> Then use the statusbar icon to minimize.

That's just as bad as using the down arrow. Firebugs status icon can
change places depending on what other extensions you have installed.
Sure it's the same thing you pressed to open, but finding the, say
4th, icon from the right, when you have firebug open, just isn't very
usable.
A close button in the top right (as it was in 1.3) would be most
consistent with the Fx UI.

[johnjbarton]

On Aug 17, 2:59 pm, Gidgidonihah <gidgidoni...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > That would just cause a different set of people to complain.
>
> So our complaints are less valid because you would have to change it
> again? :p

No, your complaints are valid and understandable. As would the
complaints of folks who like it the way it is.

> I agree with DucDigital. Have a poll. Or bloat it up a bit and give us
> an option of having the 1.3 order.

I am looking into user-feedback polls built into the update
mechanism.

>
> The 1.3 UI is much more inline with the Firefox UI to have the red x
> in the top right to minimize firefox. More so  than a down arrow 3rd
> from the right.

? What down arrow?

So what operation do you say that Firefox does when you click the red
X on a web page tab? Or the red X in the upper corner of a Firefox OS
window?

> Close a tab: X. Close the sidebar: X Close firebug: down arrow.

Cause Firefox to no long use resources for a tab: X. Cause Firebug to
no longer user resources for a page: off button.

(What down arrow are you talking about?)

> Now you might argue that it's inline with the windows UI (min) (max)
> (close). I give you that, but I see it differently.
> I close firebug. I don't turn it off. Turning it off is something I'd
> rarely do, but I close it all the time. So really it comes down to a
> difference in how you see the model.

> If this simply isn't something that's going to come back, I wonder how
> long before somebody releases that extension that restores it to the
> 1.3 UI.

This is easy to do.

>
> > Then use the statusbar icon to minimize.
>
> That's just as bad as using the down arrow. Firebugs status icon can
> change places depending on what other extensions you have installed.
> Sure it's the same thing you pressed to open, but finding the, say
> 4th, icon from the right, when you have firebug open, just isn't very
> usable.

Thanks for your observation. This is the first I've heard of this as a
problem.

> A close button in the top right (as it was in 1.3) would be most
> consistent with the Fx UI.

Well, for what its worth, its Fx UI people who convinced me that the
1.4 order made the most sense.

jjb

[JoJo]

A lot of people above are complaining about usability issues. But
personally I don't have a usability issue, I have a browser crashing
issue. When I open certain sites like Gmail and Meebo, Firefox slows
to a crawl and crashes.

The "ON/OFF for all web pages" is just too confusing for me. When
doing web development, I set it to the ON mode so Firebug doesn't
close on me each time I hit refresh. But doing so prevents me from
checking email on Gmail when I'm developing. I don't even see the OFF
button when I open Gmail in 1.5 alpha. The only way I can turn it off
for Gmail is to right click the bug, wait 1 minute as my browser is
half frozen, then finally choose "OFF for all web pages". So this
cycles back and forth between Gmailing and developing.

++++++SOLUTION++++++:
1) clicking bug icon in lower right corner opens firebug permanently
for this tab. So if I refresh in this tab, the Firebug is still open
and console is still reporting JS errors.
2) clicking bug icon will not affect any other of your tabs.
3) once current tab is closed, firebug no longer runs on this site
until you reopen firebug.

++++++ OR SOLUTION #2 +++++
Revert to old Firebug style: give me an option to turn on Firebug
permanently for localhost, Youtube, ... whatever.

[johnjbarton]

On Aug 18, 12:46 am, JoJo <tokyot...@gmail.com> wrote:
> A lot of people above are complaining about usability issues.  But
> personally I don't have a usability issue, I have a browser crashing
> issue. When I open certain sites like Gmail and Meebo, Firefox slows
> to a crawl and crashes.

If by crash you mean that Firefox exits and you get a crash reporter
dialog, then please use URL about:crashes and post the crash stats
URL.

>
> The "ON/OFF for all web pages" is just too confusing for me. When

So don"t use these features! Really, these are for exotic use cases
not for most users.

> doing web development, I set it to the ON mode so Firebug doesn't
> close on me each time I hit refresh.  But doing so prevents me from
> checking email on Gmail when I'm developing.  I don't even see the OFF
> button when I open Gmail in 1.5 alpha.  The only way I can turn it off
> for Gmail is to right click the bug, wait 1 minute as my browser is
> half frozen, then finally choose "OFF for all web pages".  So this
> cycles back and forth between Gmailing and developing.

Don't use On for all web page or Off for all web pages.

>
> ++++++SOLUTION++++++:
> 1) clicking bug icon in lower right corner opens firebug permanently
> for this tab. So if I refresh in this tab, the Firebug is still open
> and console is still reporting JS errors.
> 2) clicking bug icon will not affect any other of your tabs.

Yes this is how Firebug works. (Assuming you have otherwise default
settings).

> 3) once current tab is closed, firebug no longer runs on this site
> until you reopen firebug.

I'm uncertain what you mean here. If you debug a web site, then stop
looking at the site for any reason (close the Firefox tab with red x,
open a new URL in the tab) the Firebug will be closed (since the new
URL was not debugged). Later if you open the site Firebug is active.

>
> ++++++ OR SOLUTION #2 +++++
> Revert to old Firebug style: give me an option to turn on Firebug
> permanently for localhost, Youtube, ... whatever.

Firebug 1.4 supports this already. Just open Firebug on localhostk,
Youtube, ... whatever.

jjb

[Gidgidonihah]

> > So our complaints are less valid because you would have to change it
> > again? :p
>
> No, your complaints are valid and understandable. As would the
> complaints of folks who like it the way it is.

That was more of a joke. Hence the :p

> ? What down arrow?

The minimize button. It points down ( \/ ). Maximize points up ( /\ ).
Yes, ok, it doesn't have the straight line that is the heart and soul
of the arrow, but I figured you'd know what I meant.

> Cause Firefox to no long use resources for a tab: X. Cause Firebug to
> no longer user resources for a page: off button.

> So what operation do you say that Firefox does when you click the red
> X on a web page tab? Or the red X in the upper corner of a Firefox OS
> window?
>
> > Close a tab: X. Close the sidebar: X Close firebug: down arrow.
>
> Cause Firefox to no long use resources for a tab: X.  Cause Firebug to
> no longer user resources for a page: off button.

So you agree that it's not the same as Fx (off vs X) :p
But actually I see the reason for the difference. Especially after the
x was previously minimize.
And button type aside, you're right. I'll give you that. But my
sidebar example stands. When I open it again it's in the same state it
was before I closed it :)

> > If this simply isn't something that's going to come back, I wonder how
> > long before somebody releases that extension that restores it to the
> > 1.3 UI.
>
> This is easy to do.

Yeah, maybe I should go in and edit the xul and move the minimize over
for me. That I could handle. But then I'd have to do it on every
update.
Writing an extension for it, well, that I probably wouldn't have the
time to learn how to.

> Well, for what its worth, its Fx UI people who convinced me that the
> 1.4 order made the most sense.

Yeah, that doesn't surprise me at all. And I can even see why it is
that way. But I still think that the most used button should be the
most prominent. And it probably is (off is most used I guess?) but not
in my case since I most often minimize when I'm using firebug (off
isn't used all that often because generally I don't turn it on unless
I intend to use it quite a bit. In which case I open, minimize, open
minimize, open minimize). So that's why it makes sense to me.

Compound this slightly annoying issue (to me) with the change in how
firefox is enabled (turn on by domain via button that says so vs turn
on simply clicking the icon and the confusing on for all webpages
option) and the bug in Fx that made it not remember what sites had it
turned on made 1.4 incredibly annoying to use.

I probably just missed it when I installed, (which makes me one of
those morons that any support team rightfully complains about... RTFM)
but a large change in the way things work (mostly just the change in
how to enable firbug) should be made pretty visible when it's updated.
Though I fully expect to find that it was and I'm that guy (the kind I
hate) that didn't read it.
For a while there I was wondering why the minimize button (the red X)
was changed to the word Off. Now that I understand how things work, it
makes more sense.

I still want my minimize button more prominent. :)

But anyway, thanks for your civil and well explained response.

[Bob Hassinger]

"I have a browser crashing
issue. When I open certain sites like Gmail and Meebo, Firefox slows
to a crawl and crashes"

Watching all this discussion go by for many months, it seems a key root is "the Gmail problem".  Do I recall correctly that back around 1.2-1.3 that there were a lot of complaints about conflicts between FB and sites like Gmail, and a lot of the attention to activation schemes flowed from there?  

Likewise, as the above quote reflects a lot of the current concern would go away if there was not a need to be off/inactive/whatever for Gmail and maybe some fairly limited set of other sites.

My question is how well "the Gmail problem" is understood and what prospects and barriers might exist to address it?

That subject seems pretty obvious so I would assume it is a hard problem for some reason.  Otherwise it would have been fixed long ago.  But whatever is going on to cause it would seem to be a fundimentsl flaw.  To be effective and solid FB should be able to work on all sites without needing to worry.  It would seem Gmail is doing something legitimate that FB can not deal with effectively in the current design.

Do the new tools in other browsers that have been mentioned have similar problems?  If not, why?

This issue seems significant enough to even justify getting support or changes in FF itself if that is where it has to come from.

Just think how much more time the FB developers would have to do useful work if the problem and the endless discussion about it could go away ;-)

Bob

[johnjbarton]

On Aug 18, 12:34 pm, Bob Hassinger <r.hassin...@ieee.org> wrote:
> "I have a browser crashing
> issue. When I open certain sites like Gmail and Meebo, Firefox slows
> to a crawl and crashes"
>

> Watching all this discussion go by for many months, it seems a key  
> root is "the Gmail problem".  Do I recall correctly that back around  
> 1.2-1.3 that there were a lot of complaints about conflicts between FB  
> and sites like Gmail, and a lot of the attention to activation schemes  
> flowed from there?

I wish it were so simple.

In FF 2.0, gmail + firebug meant crashes. Eventually we learned that
the problem was much worse: google's pageads code crashed firefox
because of a combo of JS debugging and GC. Fixed in FF3.0

Issues for FF3.0 are all around resources. (I discount the "crashes"
in the report above, they may not mean the same thing I do, it may not
be Firebug, etc). Gmail is a common reason for folks to want a
browser that is both a debugger and user tool. But it's not the only
reason.

>
> Likewise, as the above quote reflects a lot of the current concern  
> would go away if there was not a need to be off/inactive/whatever for  
> Gmail and maybe some fairly limited set of other sites.

I don't agree for two reasons.

First controlling the resource requirements of Firebug will always be
needed. It is not specific to gmail or even to trying to combine
debugging and other web activity. A serious debug tool will be applied
to serious applications and they will stress the limits of resources.
We need to be able to control Firebug.

Second, its not really gmail and a limited set of sites. Rather gmail
and similar sites are just the vanguard of applications that will
continue to roll out. We can't cut and run, we have to learn how to
defeat these problems.

>
> My question is how well "the Gmail problem" is understood and what  
> prospects and barriers might exist to address it?

Yes, generally the problem with gmail, and similar AJAX applications,
is that firefox is not designed for debugging dynamic code and these
applications compile a lot of code dynamically. I wrote a lot of
Javascript that does some wacky stuff to make up the gap. It works
but it is slow.

>
> That subject seems pretty obvious so I would assume it is a hard  
> problem for some reason.  Otherwise it would have been fixed long  
> ago.  But whatever is going on to cause it would seem to be a  
> fundimentsl flaw.  To be effective and solid FB should be able to work  
> on all sites without needing to worry.  It would seem Gmail is doing  
> something legitimate that FB can not deal with effectively in the  
> current design.

Yes your analysis is quite correct.

>
> Do the new tools in other browsers that have been mentioned have  
> similar problems?  If not, why?

I don't know. Prior to my work with Firebug I don't believe that there
was any way to debug these applications. However, new Firebug-like
debuggers are now out in IE8 and Opera; V8 is coming along. I like to
know how well they work.

>
> This issue seems significant enough to even justify getting support or  
> changes in FF itself if that is where it has to come from.

I've been working on this and making steady progress. There are two
aspects.

First, what technical solution makes sense? Here we don't have much to
work with. I'm the expert on the firebug side, there is no one on the
Firefox side. There are experts deeper into the Javascript engine.

Second, who can do the work? I have a learned enough to create C++
code for making some improvements, but this work is quite time
consuming. Fortunately Firefox team has expressed a lot of support for
Firebug work. We've agreed to first focus on adding Firebug to nightly
tests of Firefox then put it on the Firefox "you must pass this test
before you move one" list. At that point we can work on Firebug on
Firefox trunk and on Firefox trunk with Firebug installed.

(To be sure there are a lot of other opportunities to exploit if we
get this done).

>
> Just think how much more time the FB developers would have to do  
> useful work if the problem and the endless discussion about it could  
> go away ;-)

I share your concern that resources we put into activation prevent us
from working on other problems. However in a lot of ways the 1.4 work
was a great investment. Without setting out to do so, we plowed
through many obscure corners of Firebug and rewrote some complex code
we did not understand before. Perhaps it will take 1.5 to iron out all
of the wrinkles, but at least we know how many pockets the shirt
has ...


jjb

[Pali.Madra]

I have installed 1.5X.0a21. Using Firefox 3.5.2.

I still cannot get Firebug to always work on some sites and not on
others. I have tried everything like minimizing and turning it on.

Please help.

Thanks ,

Pali Madra

[johnjbarton]

Try Firebug > Firebug Icon menu (upper left) > Options > reset all
Firebug options.
Now only open Firebug on sites you want to debug; push the Off button
for sites you don't. Don't use either "On for all web page" or "Off

for all web pages".

Does it work?
jjb

[Garrett Smith]

How do you define "serious application"?

If that definition/criteria includes "syntactially valid ECMAScript",
then GMail cannot be considered "serious".

Garrett

[johnjbarton]

On Aug 27, 11:27 am, Garrett Smith <dhtmlkitc...@gmail.com> wrote:

Heh. By "serious application" I meant "applications that need help
from a debugger", so gmail fits as you note.
jjb

[Garrett Smith]

All the debugger help in the world won't provide for FunctionStatement
in an interpreter that does not have that syntax extension, so it
would "work" in Firefox, but not in other browsers, and in fact,
relying on the debugger in that case would probably make finding and
fixing the problems harder.

I can't figure out why GMail has so many problems in SeaMonkey 1.1,
but it may be related to an error and the error handler trying to
access a Function (Statement) that was not yet parsed, and that is
exactly what would be expected with what looks like a
FunctionDeclaration where only a Statement is allowed.

I should probably elaborate, lest someone think I'm making stuff up.

Most of the GMail's 20 odd scripts have something that looks like:-

| try{function e(b){throw b;}

The result of placing a FunctionDeclaration in a TryStatement will
have different possible outcomes, depending on the implementation. In
some implementations, - e - and all other identifiers will get the
first-pass scan and parse as a FunctionDeclaration.

In others (Spidermonkey), the function - e - along with all other
FunctionDeclaration in the TryStatement, is parsed as a Statement.
This means that if an error occurs in the evaluation of the
TryStatement, the remainder of "FunctionStatement" is not reached in
Spidermonkey.

Garrett