This Week in DevTools (January 14, 2020)

[Patrick Brosset]

Howdy!

As an addition to this week's DevTools updates, here is a link to all the bugs resolved over the past week:

All DevTools bugs fixed last week

I'll be adding this link to all future emails.

Debugger

• Initial async stacks (aka async awaiters) will be enabled in Debugger
  Link

Console

• The `cd()` console command is now deprecated. It can still be used but a warning message is displayed whenever it is used. See bug 1605327 for more context on why it is being deprecated.

• Eager evaluation is now available in Nightly: go in the console, click on the settings icon (top right cog icon) and select "Eager Evaluation" (bug 1603369).

• Eager evaluation evaluates the input + the completion text if it exists. This means the result will be updated as you arrow down/up in the autocomplete popup (bug 1607279)

• The console input now respects the “Autoclose brackets” setting. When the setting is enabled, this will automatically insert the corresponding “closing” element for quotes (`, “, `), brackets ( {, [) and parens. (bug 1582693)

Layout/Mobile Tools

• All of the sidebar panels in the inspector have been updated so they behave better when they're narrow. Some rearrange better as space become limited, others get horizontal scrollbars (bug 1516549).

• Now when manually copying text inside the Changes panel, the + and - signs are ignored. This way you can paste the copied code and don't have to remove a bunch of characters (bug 1602152).

• The handling for <meta viewport> instructions in RDM, which landed back in Firefox 72, is now being gradually rolled-out to users on release. Starting today, 25% of users will get it, and then more and more over the coming 2 weeks. We will be monitoring stability and if all goes well, all users will have this with 73.

Network Monitor

• WebSocket Inspector supports WAMP protocol, including JSON, MsgPack and CBOR. (bug)

Application Panel

• Added support for target switching 

• Service Worker Inspection and Debugging to be enabled this week

• New “Application” panel for Web App Manifest and Service Worker inspection
  Link

• Debuggable Service Worker instances are shown in Debugger
  Link

General

• The team is at work on a few different Google Summer of Code proposals. There should be around 4 different projects for DevTools this year. More on this later.

Fission (dashboards)

• We are starting to work on a new milestone for the Fission project called M2.

• This milestone will last for the first 6 months of H1 and will get most of the tools and framework pieces ready for real fission frame support.

• It will also introduce a new UI used to list and select the execution context for JavaScript.

• RDM is being re-built for Fission (in particular, the need that RDM has for a nested <iframe mozbrowser> element is being removed). Most of the important pieces are now ready, and if you feel inclined you can test it out by switching the pref: devtools.responsive.browserUI.enabled. Beware though, this is still very early, and hasn't been tested. This work should be done towards the end of Q1 2020.

• Most panels in DevTools now support (or are in the process of supporting) process switches that happen when a page navigation occurs. This means the toolbox will soon be able to remain open even when navigating between 2 processes. See bugs.