Inspect Element Broken

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Matt Vincik

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Dec 2, 2016, 8:47:07 AM12/2/16
to Firebug
Hello,

I am reading a lot of problems people are having with the latest release of Firebug. This tool has been part of my daily life for many years now. I'm pretty disappointed that even the most simplest function is broken.
When you click inspect element it defaults to the HTML body now instead of going directly to the element that I chose to inspect.

What happened? Why was this version released with not even the most basic of functions working correctly?

My opinion, revert back to the previous version, give it a new version number, and go back to the drawing board on whatever you guys were trying to accomplish with this latest release.
You're going to lose a lot of people that would otherwise use and recommend this tool if this is what people should expect with new releases.

Final note: Thanks for all the great years that everything did work.

Take care.

Erik Krause

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Dec 2, 2016, 2:50:53 PM12/2/16
to fir...@googlegroups.com
Am 02.12.2016 um 01:27 schrieb Matt Vincik:

> What happened?

Firebug is not compatible with new multi process architecture and there
was not enough manpower to make it compatible. Instead it was decided to
merge firebug with the developer tools. So if you want to go back to
firebug, find some developers and do it. It's open source after all.

Otherwise help to make developer tools better. There is a thread to
gather all points that still need improvement:
https://groups.google.com/d/topic/firebug/Q6eyvGt6hyI/discussion

And there is a migration guide:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Migrating_from_Firebug

--
Erik Krause
http://www.erik-krause.de

ajo was

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Jan 4, 2017, 2:26:35 PM1/4/17
to Firebug
Hello,

thanks for your hard work, dedication, passion...

the r-click -> inspect element -> jump to that element in html-view is really essential.

if it is not working it means firebug / developertools have become pretty useless to me.

hope you can fix this soon :)

as long i really would suggest sticking with the old version (2.0.18) of firebug.

http://getfirebug.com/releases/firebug/2.0/firebug-2.0.18.xpi

happy new world order

ajo was

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Jan 4, 2017, 3:51:53 PM1/4/17
to Firebug
sooooo it seems to come down to:

  1. stay with firefox 45 and use firebug
  2. update to firefox 52 abandon firebug, and stick to developer tools.
unfortunately … it seems more of a firefox then of a firebug issue. firebug 2.0.18 „inspect element“ works fine under Firefox 45.4.0, but fails under Firefox 52.0a2.

http://getfirebug.com/releases/firebug/2.0/firebug-2.0.18.xpi


so doing the: about:config

search and double click this entry to change it to:

xpinstall.signatures.required = false


DOES NOT HELP in Firefox 52 (even in developer edition)


Sebastian Zartner

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Jan 5, 2017, 3:36:51 AM1/5/17
to Firebug
Happy New Year to everyone!

For clarification, the inspect feature in the DevTools does work but is slow. What's confusing is that it's first selecting the <body> element before selecting the inspected element. I've filed bug 1324254 for this. I believe this is a regression to previous versions of the DevTools. I could need help in finding the commit that caused the regression. If you want to help me, you can use mozregression to do so.

Sebastian

Lawrence San

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Jan 5, 2017, 6:38:28 PM1/5/17
to fir...@googlegroups.com
A few other differences in how the Inspect feature works:

In Firebug (on a Mac, anyway) I was able to put a separate "Inspect" button in the Mac's Dock (similar to Windows Taskbar).  There doesn't seem to be any separate Inspect button in DevTools. If the DevTools console is attached to the bottom of my browser window, this doesn't matter, since there's a convenient Inspect tool in the upper-left corner of the console. However, if I detach the DevTools console to my second monitor, it's very inconvenient not to have an Inspect button on the same monitor as the main browser window. I end up using the right-click to inspect, but for me the Dock button was faster and more convenient.

Another difference -- not sure I remember this correctly because I haven't used Firebug in a while -- but I seem to recall that the effect of clicking Firebug's Inspect tool on something in my main web page (not in the HTML code) was quite persistent. In other words, I could click something on the web page, and then cruise around in the panel/code views and get different kinds of information about the selected object. In DevTools, the Inspector-selected object seems to deselect itself quickly so I have to frequently re-select it, which is annoying. It's not "persistent" enough.

Finally... correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall Inspect in Firebug being a separate mode. I recall it being just a tool that could work across more than one panel mode. However, in DevTools, Inspect seems to be a completely separate panel (with HTML and CSS sub-panels). This makes no sense to me -- why is Inspect a separate panel? You might want to Inspect a page element for HTML, or CSS, or any other panel, and these are panels that already exist (often in more powerful form) separately. Why duplicate them? Why isn't the DevTools Inspect tool universal?

In sum, like other people here, I found the Firebug Inspector much more usable.

Sebastian Zartner

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Jan 8, 2017, 11:02:51 AM1/8/17
to Firebug
On Friday, January 6, 2017 at 12:38:28 AM UTC+1, San wrote:
A few other differences in how the Inspect feature works:

In Firebug (on a Mac, anyway) I was able to put a separate "Inspect" button in the Mac's Dock (similar to Windows Taskbar).

Outside of the browser? I didn't see that yet. I just know custom toolbar buttons.
 
There doesn't seem to be any separate Inspect button in DevTools.

You're right. That's currently missing. There's bug 1302363 to add an Inspect button.

Another difference -- not sure I remember this correctly because I haven't used Firebug in a while -- but I seem to recall that the effect of clicking Firebug's Inspect tool on something in my main web page (not in the HTML code) was quite persistent. In other words, I could click something on the web page, and then cruise around in the panel/code views and get different kinds of information about the selected object. In DevTools, the Inspector-selected object seems to deselect itself quickly so I have to frequently re-select it, which is annoying. It's not "persistent" enough.

Not sure I understand this. You can get all the info for the selected element and the selection persists panel switches and page reloads. Can you provide an example where that's not the case?

Finally... correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall Inspect in Firebug being a separate mode. I recall it being just a tool that could work across more than one panel mode. However, in DevTools, Inspect seems to be a completely separate panel (with HTML and CSS sub-panels). This makes no sense to me -- why is Inspect a separate panel? You might want to Inspect a page element for HTML, or CSS, or any other panel, and these are panels that already exist (often in more powerful form) separately. Why duplicate them? Why isn't the DevTools Inspect tool universal?

The Inspector in Firebug worked within the HTML and the DOM panel and allowed to be used by Firebug extensions. The Inspector in the DevTools is bound to the Inspector panel (which is the equivalent to Firebug's HTML panel). I don't know if it can be reused by DevTools extensions.

In sum, like other people here, I found the Firebug Inspector much more usable.

Sebastian Zartner

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Feb 14, 2017, 5:48:51 AM2/14/17
to Firebug
It was just pointed out lately, that this issue is related to the Inspect Element with Firebug option. Issue 8077 was created to fix this (by removing the option).

Please use the Inspect Element option instead!

Sebastian
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