Update #1 on unshipping the GCLI (AKA Developer Toolbar)

[Soledad Penadés]

Hello,

This is a follow up to Patrick's initial message announcing our
intentions to remove the GCLI from Developer Tools:

https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/firefox-dev/2018-March/006249.html

I am now running this initiative, and I'm here to update you on where we
are :-)

Based on the responses to the initial intent to unship email, the
feedback in the tracking bug, the responses to our questions to various
Firefox developers and QA engineers, and looking at our telemetry data
on usage, *the* critical feature is the restart command.

We have provided an alternative to restart and are awaiting confirmation
from QA that it is a suitable solution. It is available in Nightly since
the 5th of May 2018:

    Windows/Linux: Ctrl+Shift+J (open Browser Console) then Ctrl+Alt+R
(restart the browser)
    Mac: ⌘⇧J, ⌘⌥R

If you use the restart command a lot, we would *really* appreciate input
from you on whether this is a good replacement. The more background you
provide the better for us to understand (e.g. "I use the restart command
because I'm developing a heavy UI and I'm leaking memory like there's no
tomorrow so restarting is the best way to come back to a fresh browser"
is much better than "I use restart a lot").

Our next step is to disable the GCLI UI (as some features of DevTools
rely on the non UI GCLI code to work). Then, we’ll migrate these
features, refactor other features we keep, and eventually remove the
rest of the code and tests.

I've also put together a page documenting this process, so if you're
curious you can check that out regularly instead of trying to decipher a
Bugzilla metabug:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSh02ilZT6BwMnYJ2XC_DrrN7GoIWktNAFlYLvGlTMyM7KFelrB6DBWBQEsgHIIiOCH561TWcTBevBk/pub

Finally, thanks to all the people who've shared insights with us so far.
They have been very informative and helpful. Thanks!

More updates, soon!

sole

--
http://soledadpenades.com

[Sebastian Zartner]

>From a UX standpoint it's quite inconvenient that I have to open the
Browser Console first. Then I need to focus the document within the
Browser Console, i.e. click into it, otherwise the shortcut doesn't
work (at least on Windows). And after the reload I have to close the
Browser Console again.

How about adding the shortcut when the DevTools Toolbox is opened?

Sebastian

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[J. Ryan Stinnett]

On Thu, May 17, 2018 at 3:22 PM Sebastian Zartner <
sebastia...@gmail.com> wrote:

> From a UX standpoint it's quite inconvenient that I have to open the
> Browser Console first. Then I need to focus the document within the
> Browser Console, i.e. click into it, otherwise the shortcut doesn't
> work (at least on Windows). And after the reload I have to close the
> Browser Console again.
>

Pressing the same shortcut used to open the Browser Console will focus it
if it is not focused, so all of these steps can be completed from the
keyboard. Perhaps this alleviates some of the concern here?

- Ryan

[Brian Grinstead]

If you have chrome debugging enabled then the input field gets focused and the shortcut works as expected.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1461366 is on file to remove the need to the manually focus the window when the input field isn’t shown.

Brian

[Myk Melez]

> Brian Grinstead <mailto:bgrin...@mozilla.com>
> May 17, 2018 at 13:52

> If you have chrome debugging enabled then the input field gets
> focused and the shortcut works as expected.
>
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1461366 is on file to
> remove the need to the manually focus the window when the input field
> isn’t shown.

In the meantime, a workaround that doesn't require you to focus the
document by clicking into it is to press the tab key (which should focus
the "trash can" button) after opening the Browser Console.

-myk

[Sebastian Zartner]

Pressing the same shortcut twice didn't work for me, though enabling Chrome
debugging did, as well as pressing Tab. This mitigates the issue, thanks!

Sebastian

On 17 May 2018 at 23:14, Myk Melez <m...@mykzilla.org> wrote:

>
> Brian Grinstead <bgrin...@mozilla.com>