Future if Firebug?

[William Nerini]

Given that, according to this post, it appears plugins that currently rely on the Add-on SDK  will stop functioning, as well as plugins using XUL, XBL and XPCOM. How will this impact Firebug? I've looked, briefly at the Firebug.next project, but it's not clear that's a response to these announced changes.

At this time, Firebug is, literally, the only reason I still use Firefox, and is irreplaceable in my development process; no other browser had a tool remotely approaching Firebug's power and flexibility. So I'm hoping to get some clarity on where you folks are, given the announced changes.

Thanks,
Will

[Lawrence San]

They've already said here (if I understand correctly) that the future Firebug will be built on top of Firefox's own developer tools, rather than being a completely independent extension. I don't know whether I'll like the new Firebug or not, but I'm pretty sure it will continue to exist in some form.

I'm not so sanguine about all the other web-devel extensions I use in Firefox, however. I find it hard to believe that all those extension developers, almost none of whom have been paid a dime for all their hard work, will just accept having to throw out all their code and start all over again. I suspect that most of the power extensions for Firefox-based devel will cease to exist, and with it my main reason for using Firefox at all.

Also, the Chrome extension environment, which Mozilla will apparently be adopting (just as they've adopted Chrome's simplified interface, for the most part) doesn't allow an extension to get down into the guts of the browser and make major changes. For example, look at the awkward interface that Chris Pederick was forced to use in Chrome for his great Web Developer Toolbar, compared to the much more elegant interface that the same extension has in Firefox. I expect nasty changes like that throughout -- in the name of "security" Firefox will be less configurable than before -- the main characteristic distinguishing it from other browsers in the first place.

Already, FF is alerting (in both Mac and Windows) that ColorZilla is "not verified for use in Firefox," despite its claiming to be signed (and no response from the developer to inquiries). I think Firebug is probably the one devel extension that I'm fairly confident will continue to work -- but will it be as good, or hobbled by all Mozilla's new restrictions? And will Firebug alone be a sufficient reason to stick around?

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Lawrence San
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[William Nerini]

These are also the concerns I have. Even with the DeveloperToolbar on Chrome I find its developer tools to be a joke. Same for Firefox's built-in tools. I'm already getting those warnings, as well, for several of the extensions I run, most importantly, PrivacyBadger.

I've seen the "Firebug.next" comments, but they're obscure, to be kind, and I really need to understand whether I'm going to have to stand still, for a bit, on my browser/tools for development.

I suppose PaleMoon will be my only alternative, as a regular browser user, looking for a flexible, configurable browser, but that doesn't necessarily solve my problems as a developer: I do extensive client-side app development in JavaScript (I'm writing a Virtual Tabletop for Pen and Paper RPGs at the moment, at the moment) and would be dead in the water, using FF's own tools or Chrome's, and Firebug's latest versions have issues under PaleMoon.

This is why I posted here, to hopefully get some clarity on the specifics of Firebug's future and encourage the devs to work to make the latest version of Firebug (PLEASE) to work in PaleMoon.

Thanks for your reply!

[deleted/re-posted to correct stupid typos]

[Sebastian Zartner]

I can also just speak for myself, though as Lawrance already stated, Firebug will continue to exist and it will be integrated into the Firefox built-in devtools. The goal is to adjust their UI to look and work like Firebug. Furthermore Firebug 3 uses the Add-on SDK and is already prepared for the multi-process Firefox (Electrolysis).
And to correct William's statement: The blog post says Add-on SDK based extensions will continue to work as long as they don't access the content process directly, i.e. if they are multi-process compatible.

If you are uncertain how Firebug.next works, you can try out a Firebug 3 alpha:

https://getfirebug.com/releases/firebug/3.0/

(If you are using Firefox Beta, Dev Edition or Nightly, ensure you set xpinstall.signatures.required to false to be able to install it.)

Sebastian

[William Nerini]

I'd love to give 3.0 a try, but cannot, at the moment, or indeed for a few months. Firebug is mission-critical to my current app's development process and that process is on a deadline. I  can't take the risk that I would be forced into an inferior tool-set (and the Mozilla-provided "tools" are that, in my experience) which would slow down or cripple my dev process. In fact, I've currently disabled ALL updating of Firefox, so as to avoid  exactly that situation. :(

The only option I can explore, for the near-future is PaleMoon (https://www.palemoon.org/), with an older version of Firebug, as a concurrent installation, which is why I am in favor of getting Firebug's latest 2.0 version compatible with that fork (but understand why that is unfortunately probably not going to happen). :)

Thanks,
Will

[Sebastian Zartner]

On Friday, August 28, 2015 at 12:08:48 PM UTC+2, William Nerini wrote:

I'd love to give 3.0 a try, but cannot, at the moment, or indeed for a few months. Firebug is mission-critical to my current app's development process and that process is on a deadline. I  can't take the risk that I would be forced into an inferior tool-set (and the Mozilla-provided "tools" are that, in my experience) which would slow down or cripple my dev process. In fact, I've currently disabled ALL updating of Firefox, so as to avoid  exactly that situation. :(

I suggest, when you have time again you should try the built-in devtools again and file bugs for the things that are annoying for you. The devtools team obviously wants to close the gaps between Firebug and their tools. See bug 991806.
Also, I have to say that I like the devtools. Their UI and features are in some parts not as good as Firebug, though therefore they offer much more features. And I am saying that as a former Firebug contributor.
 

The only option I can explore, for the near-future is PaleMoon (https://www.palemoon.org/), with an older version of Firebug, as a concurrent installation, which is why I am in favor of getting Firebug's latest 2.0 version compatible with that fork (but understand why that is unfortunately probably not going to happen). :)

If Pale Moon gets updated to be based on a newer version of Firefox (30+), you should be able to install Firebug 2.0.x on it. Though I don't know if the team behind Pale Moon is willing to do so.

Actually I tried it out right now and was able to get it to run, though only the HTML, CSS, DOM and Cookies panel work. If that's enough for you, I can share that version here.

Sebastian

[William Nerini]

I suggest, when you have time again you should try the built-in devtools again and file bugs for the things that are annoying for you. The devtools team obviously wants to close the gaps between Firebug and their tools. See bug 991806. Also, I have to say that I like the devtools. Their UI and features are in some parts not as good as Firebug, though therefore they offer much more features. And I am saying that as a former Firebug contributor.

 

Sadly, most of my problems with the built-in tools are lack of features. And that's not a bug-fix away. Especially problematic, for me, is the poorly implemented variable watch system and lack of a real "DOM Panel". Also the "debugger" is a mess, in general, but especially when it comes to script navigation and (as before) watches. I had come up with a list, last year which had about a dozen features and dozens of bugfixes/changes that would be required to their tools, to bring them up to Firebug's level, for me, so I see any attempts there, on my part, as, essentially, an effort doomed to get no traction. The problem lies in that I'm doing extremely intense client-side development and Firefox's tools seem to be fundamentally geared towards the developer who needs to work on the occasional small scripting problem. Firebug has, for me, been a godsend. I couldn't have developed half the tools I have for my apps without its power and flexibility.

If Pale Moon gets updated to be based...

Unfortunately, the debugger is the most important part of Firebug, for me, so that's a no-go. Like I said, (or hinted at rather), I haven't had the time, yet, to check it out thoroughly (in addition to my own app dev-process, I also churn out about 2-4 WP sites for clients, per week, so am quite busy.), but your experience is a welcome addition to my knowledge base. Not sure is FF30 would break their goals, I suspect it might, but just don't know. I'm going to try to go down the PaleMoon rabbit-hole next week. :)

Unfortunately, from my POV, it seems Mozilla has chosen to ignore the most important of its remaining user base, developers, and just follow, IMO, a faddish path in Firefox's development, to the detriment of its current, fantastic and vital 3rd party tools. The Chrome plugin ecosphere, and its code base, is one for consumers, not users, if you see my meaning. :(

[stephen taylor]

For my small 2 cents here -- I am completely agree with @William Nerini. I think the folks at Firefox do not a clue about how important the dev community is to their product and I think they seem to be pursuing things that, as UI front-end developer, I have never seen "real" people require. Whereas, it does not seem all that hard -- in the context of a company with their capabilities -- to exactly re-create Firebug, and then improve it. Sorry but with 35 years of engineering in my past, I simply do not buy any other notion except that they do not understand or value the role the dev community plays in their market. I personally rely on Firebug in every project every day, especially for the DOM panel, the JSON readout on Ajax fetches and on the console. Whatever happened with the "new" firebug last year, updating a complex DOM is now so slow that to can take 3-4 seconds to update after an ajax fetch after a page load. If the console is not open when the page is refreshed, it can also take 4-5 seconds to actually show the  console events embedded in scripts that have already executed. I long ago stopped using debug as it simply created more work trying to make it function. I have said before that the team Firebug is fantastic and have created a tool that is best-of-class (by far) - - as for the folks at Firefox doing the Dev Tools, I think have either never developed complex web apps with deep DOMs and lots of JS libraries or don't care.

[William Nerini]

Just to give everyone an idea of what I mean by "intense client-side" development, here is a WIP image of my current project, "The Role Table." It's a Virtual Tabletop for Pen and Paper Role-Playing Games. It allowspeople around the globe to get together and play any RPG (Think D&D) as if they were all sitting around the same kitchen table. It allows folks to directly implement the rules for any RPG system, through an easy-to-read XML format (created by hand or by a supplied desktop app). It makes extensive use of Ajax, JSON and CSS. (warning large image, click to enlarge)

Some of the visible features, from left to right.

• Chat Window
  Text chat, plus output for manually entered dice formulas or die-roll results provided by the rule-set and clicked on the UI.
• Die Roller
  Allows users a quick interface to roll one or more dice and modify those rolls (the text-box).
• Character Sheet
  Defines by the rule-set and implementing dozens of common RPG functions, derived attributes, item and skill lists, etc. Dynamically generated at run-time from a JSON DB. Multi-paged.
• Player Portrait List
  Locally stores portraits a player can drag and drop to the character sheet.
  
• Mapping tool
  Allows dynamic loading/scaling of images with or without a grid overlay,
  Multiple layers upon which the game master or players can add/scale/move image tokens
  Combat targeting
  Line-of-Sight
  Area-of-Effect combat
  Fog-of-war obscuring with either a generic gray overlay or image overlays.
  By-Player visibility configuration
• Audio (and Video) player/lists
  Allows game master to send audio (invisibly) and video to players, to be popped up and played for any or all players, at the game master's discretion.
• Item/Ability/Skill Lists
  Rule-set specific skills, items and gear each player can drag and drop to their character sheets (and use from there).
  

All windows are moveable with positions remembered and support dragging and dropping, configurable context menus, and more. The app also implements a plugin architecture, allowing users to further extend ts functionality. All communication from browser done with a messaging server app, written to run under Windows/MacOS/Linux and using JSON and XML as its formats. Future features to include a "3D" dice roller, built-in voice/video chat and more.

So, you can see, a "toy" debugger just isn't going to cut it, for me, LOL. Firebug does a fantastic job for me, though.

[William Nerini]

Whoops, forgot to add:

It currently targets (using CSS) a variety of browser platforms and screen sizes. Currently tested on: iPhone (5.6), iPad, Android and the 3 major desktop browsers.

[Lawrence San]

William,

I'm not into games but I really like the "dirty parchment" background/texture of the two windows on the left in your screenshot. Where did you get those backgrounds? Or did you make them from scratch somehow? Are they available somewhere? Thanks.

On Fri, Aug 28, 2015 at 9:17 AM, William Nerini <wne...@gmail.com> wrote:

Whoops, forgot to add:

It currently targets (using CSS) a variety of browser platforms and screen sizes. Currently tested on: iPhone (5.6), iPad, Android and the 3 major desktop browsers.

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[William Nerini]

Well, mostly posted as a list of the kind of supported features/complexity in the app, no love for games needed. ;)

As to the texture, I got it from a google image search (rights-free). So I'm happy to share the full-size version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8eADX9sBWPacWdydWo0T3cxS1U/view?usp=sharing

[Lawrence San]

Thanks much!

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[Sebastian Zartner]

On Friday, August 28, 2015 at 2:21:01 PM UTC+2, stephen taylor wrote:

For my small 2 cents here -- I am completely agree with @William Nerini. I think the folks at Firefox do not a clue about how important the dev community is to their product and I think they seem to be pursuing things that, as UI front-end developer, I have never seen "real" people require.

As far as I can say, they do care about the developer community. They have a big team working full time on the devtools, they even have a Dev Edition of Firefox and the team is asking users for their input.
If you feel, their tools are not useful enough, you should provide them your feedback. And by feedback I mean requesting small feature or change requests on UserVoice or Bugzilla. Then you'll surely better be heard than by telling them that their tools are crap.

Whereas, it does not seem all that hard -- in the context of a company with their capabilities -- to exactly re-create Firebug, and then improve it.

I would have loved if they picked up Firebug, though they decided differently. And this decision has disadvantages, but also big advantages.

On Friday, August 28, 2015 at 8:03:20 AM UTC-4, William Nerini wrote:

I suggest, when you have time again you should try the built-in devtools again and file bugs for the things that are annoying for you. The devtools team obviously wants to close the gaps between Firebug and their tools. See bug 991806. Also, I have to say that I like the devtools. Their UI and features are in some parts not as good as Firebug, though therefore they offer much more features. And I am saying that as a former Firebug contributor.

 

Sadly, most of my problems with the built-in tools are lack of features. And that's not a bug-fix away.

Well, with 'bug' I actually thought of issue, i.e. meaning bug reports and feature requests.
 

Especially problematic, for me, is the poorly implemented variable watch system

The Variables side panel of the devtools offers pretty much the same functionality as the Watch side panel in Firebug with the exception that they cannot toggle different variable types and their UI is a bit different.
 

and lack of a real "DOM Panel".

The built-in tools offer at least a similar tool as a side panel. E.g. when you execute window inside the command line and then click on the output, you'll get a list of all properties defined in window. Surely by far not perfect. Though Firebug 3 adds the DOM panel back and there's already a request for adding a main panel to the devtools.

Also the "debugger" is a mess, in general,

Just because its UI may not be as intuitive as in Firebug, I wouldn't call it a mess.
 

but especially when it comes to script navigation

The script navigation and search functionality inside the Debugger panel is much more powerful than in Firebug. You can search by file, search within files, go to a specific line, filter variables and even search for a function definition. Again, just the UI is not obvious enough.

I had come up with a list, last year which had about a dozen features and dozens of bugfixes/changes that would be required to their tools, to bring them up to Firebug's level, for me, so I see any attempts there, on my part, as, essentially, an effort doomed to get no traction.

Could you point me at that list?

The problem lies in that I'm doing extremely intense client-side development and Firefox's tools seem to be fundamentally geared towards the developer who needs to work on the occasional small scripting problem.

With such a huge client-side project, I'm sure you can provide valuable feedback for the devtools team. Again, from my experience, giving constructive critics to the right people and cutting things down to small enhancement requests is the best way to get heard.
 

Firebug has, for me, been a godsend. I couldn't have developed half the tools I have for my apps without its power and flexibility.

Great to hear that!

Sebastian
 

[Lawrence San]

That's a very interesting post, Sebastian. It would be great if there were a chart somewhere comparing the similar features in Firebug vs. the built-in dev tools... maybe even also vs. the Chrome dev tools... with tips as to how to "translate" between the different feature sets, if you see what I mean.

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[Sebastian Zartner]

I got what you mean, though I don't have enough time to do that myself. But Firebug's documentation is a wiki, so everyone is welcome to add a comparison page for the different tools to it.

Sebastian

[William Nerini]

I had come up with a list, last year which had about a dozen features and dozens of bugfixes/changes that would be required to their tools, to bring them up to Firebug's level, for me, so I see any attempts there, on my part, as, essentially, an effort doomed to get no traction.

Could you point me at that list?

I'll try and dig it up, but no promises, as lots of text and backups have gone of since then. :)

I've just halted updates to Firefox, for now.

[Jan Honza Odvarko]

Read this post to know more about Firebug's future
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2015/10/firebug-devtools-integration/

Related newsgroup thread
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/firebug/xrImQJdSi3I


Honza