Wow! You have expressed the problem, as I see it, thoroughly and yet succinctly. Thanks, and allow me to add my +1 :-)
- Luke On Jul 6, 10:13 am, nod <[email protected]> wrote: > Okay, let's start fresh and try this again. Long time user, 2nd post. > > Looking through the newsgroup, I see several people trying to > articulate this point and explain why it's such a significant problem, > without success on the receiving end. I don't know if I'll be more > successful, but I'll be trying to be very concrete, logical, and step- > by-step. > > Core problem description: conflation of UI visibility with activation > I'll be trying to explain: > 1. what this is > 2. that this is different from previous Firebugs > 3. why the conflation is a bad thing > 4. why the way the change was implemented is a bad thing > > Scenario A: > 1. Ctrl-F12, "Open Firebug in New Window" > 2. See a greyed-out window with a button in the middle saying > "Activate Firebug for the selected Firefox tab" > 3. Think "ok, I will activate Firebug so that it will be 'on' and I > can debug this web page" > 4. Click the Activate button. > 5. Discover that a page refresh is needed, and refresh the web page. > 6. Use Firebug to investigate an issue in the web page > 7. Be finished with Firebug for the moment, but want to continue > working with the web page > 8. Use i) Ctrl-W, ii) File->Close, iii) the red "X", or iv) "Open > Firebug in New Window" to close the Firebug window. > 9. User now thinks Firebug window is closed, but that Firebug is still > running (like all previous versions) on this web page. > 10. Repeat step 1. > Expected: To be in the same state as the beginning of step 8 > Actual: The user is at state 5 > Expected: That the console log and net tab have been operating between > steps 9 and 10 > Actual: Firebug has been "suspended" during that time, so any issues > have to be recreated > > Scenario A illustrates how two functions which were heretofore > distinct: > 1. The "on-ness" or activation of Firebug > 2. The visibility of the user interface of Firebug > have been merged, or conflated, into one single thing, where "thing" > means both representation in the Firebug interface and action taken by > the user. This conflation leads to these perceived problems: > > Expected: Hiding the Firebug UI does not turn it off for my web page > Actual: Hiding the Firebug UI turned off console logging, script > breakpoints, net logging > Expected: I turned Firebug on for this site, it should always be > running > Actual: Firebug gets turned off unintentionally - the user meant to > *hide* Firebug, but they also *deactivated* it because those two > actions are conflated. > Expected: There is a way to have Firebug hidden but running, like all > previous versions > Actual: There is NO way to close the Firebug external window without > deactivating Firebug for that web page. > > These are all different ways of attempting to express the effect of > this conflation. Now, do I need to explain how this is different from > previous Firebug versions? In previous versions, once I got things > turned on for my whitelist of sites (which, for me personally is just > "localhost" most of the time), I never had to worry about it again. I > don't think there *was* any "suspension" of Firebug previously. > > The existence of a suspension/deactivation feature is not itself a bad > thing. However, by tying it inextricably to the visibility of the > Firebug UI, users are forced to do both things when they only want to > do one. > > The way this change was made really brought about confusion, by *not > changing anything visible*. The menu still says "Open Firebug", not > "Activate Firebug". The Firebug File menu still says "Close", not > "Deactivate". This is guaranteed to confuse all the users who are > migrating to Firefox 3.5 and are trying to deduce why/how Firebug > changed its behavior. (The no-auto-refresh change, while a good > change once a toggle/preference gets implemented, is another > confounding variable to figure out.) > > Here are a few more problems with external window mode that are > inconsistencies with even the new conflated model: (These are NOT the > main issue here, they serve just to further illustrate how the > semantics of UI visibility are subtly different for in-page mode and > external window mode, further illustrating how the central conflation > fails to work usefully and understandably.) > Expected: "minimize" works the same for all modes of Firebug > Actual: in-page Firebug is hidden completely by minimize, while the > external window stays around in the Windows taskbar. > Expected: if the Firebug UI insists on being visible when active and > hidden when deactivated, then the external window should hide itself > for non-active tabs > Actual: the Firebug external window remains open (but greyed out) when > the user switches to a non-active tab > Expected: external window mode v. in-page mode will be remembered > Actual: if a user uses the "switch to non-active page, then close > external window, then come back to active page" trick, the Firebug UI > comes back inside the page rather than as an external window > > I develop a web application that has server-rendered components that > are sensitive to page size. Having Firebug pop up inside the browser > makes my page size smaller, which causes Bad Things (tm) to happen > with respect to debugging ability. This is why I always use the > external window mode of Firebug, and thus why the conflation of UI > visibility with activation hits me - and all external-mode Firebug > users - even harder than most. > > Are we now close to clear on the nature of this problem? > Again, love the tool and am here because I care. Thanks. -James --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Firebug" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/firebug?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
