Firefox/Feature Brainstorming:Developer-facing UI

Developer tools

• Some easy and transparent way say a button or a checkbox in options to toggle development state of the browser. In this state mainly all caching is turned off and errors in formatting and scripts are somehow highlighted.
• In this state, we can have a mark/have a group of extensions enabled. In normal browsing, we can have them disabled.

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Developer tools

• Interface, to call JavaScript functions from XSLT
• (You can take a look at msxsl:script)

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DOM inspector

• make the DOM Inspector an add-on, to save complete reinstallation for those who missed it during setup. If Flock can do it, surely FF can
• improved functionality:
  • automatcially refreshes when the page is refreshed
  • ability to edit attributes, CSS properties, etc and see live results
  • Some way to get feedback on XMLHttpRequest dispatches (which would otherwise be invisible)

Bug 339174 - List DOMi on AMO

Current Add-ons

• such as Live HTTPHeaders, Web developer toolbar, Firebug to remain as add-ons, NOT bloating the core browser as previously proposed

Consider integrate Firebug 1.0 (this is THE TOOL) at install. Fantastic!!!

Developer tools

• Asynch-Panel to replace javascript div-update implementations

It would be great to have mechanism to define a panel, where data may be send to a server and its response is rendered into a certain area like:

<asynch-panel refpanel="myPanel" refid="test" /> <asynch-panel name="myPanel" target="http://blabla.de/bsp.jsp"> <input type="text" id="test" value="<%="blabla"%>" /> <input type="submit" /> </asynch-panel>

Of course such panels would allow nested panels and form elements to have maximum control.

I know that such an extension would be only usable for Firefox users, but it would speed up asynch development at leat in closed user groups with certain system requirements.

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Developer tools

• FAST! VM for client side scripting with extension API to add additional languages other than javascript eg. Python, Ruby, LUA

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CSS Enhancements

• anti-aliased rounded corners
• gradient filled background

Check out "HTMLayout CSS support map", they have done gradient filled backgrounds very effectively.

Rounded corners are anti-aliased in Minefield, thanks to the new graphics renderer. There is a screenshot of this, but I cannot locate it.

Simplified Drag and Drop Support

• I know it might be heretical, but it would make life easier for some of us Ajaxy types if Firefox bit the bullet and supported IE style drag and drop.

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'Official Generic' code release

• Offer a 'generic' Firefox tree without trademarked elements or non-free plugins.

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DesignMode - MIDAS

• Get all the bugs ironed out of the current Design Mode implementation. FireFox / Mozilla and IE are about neck and neck with features vs. issues and bugs. Haven't tried Opera's solution yet. It would be a great opportunity to really shine in this area.
• Extend DesignMode, make it something really usefull.

http://www.mozilla.org/editor/midasdemo/

Show Extended Element Properties

• Show all available attributes of an element.
• Provide links to parent and child properties.
• Allow editing certain attributes on-the-fly.

http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-HTML/html.html

Advanced Source Viewer

• Add ability to collapse tags (hide inner html).
• Allow editing of html source.
• Add ability to reload page from source.
• Add the number of line on the left.
• Add ability to view source in current tab instead of a new window (toggle between page and source with ctrl+U) Fridaythe14th

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Developer tools

• Have a Graphical Interface that will provide the ability to customise the appearance of the firefox window and to enable/disable or show/hide features (such as Show/Hide Navigation Toolbar, Enable/Disable Fullscreen, Show/Hide Titlebar etc.) and other features such as all the configuration in the Tools | Options as well as in the about:config areas and also having the ability to customise settings in the userChrome.css and userContent.css files through the interface without the need for scripting them.

• Providing the ability to set the width and height of the browser window as loads through the GUI, without having to create a specialised shortcut with special command-line parameters would be a godsend.

Having these abilities through a GUI to totally customise the way firefox appears and displays webpages will destractly improves firefox's ability to compete against Microsoft's HTML Applications, so users/developers can write web applications and have them display through firefox the way they want them to appear.

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Javascript debugger

• Possibility to set Javascrip breakpoints in used scripts;
• Javascript step-by-step tracing ability;

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General select box

• Using OS GUI to render select box is a drawback - hard to apply style for such a component. It could be great to use built-in select box which looks identical on all OSes and accepts all available CSS features;

http://archivist.incutio.com/viewlist/css-discuss/42231

JavaScript Task bar notifier

• Using the JavaScript to notify the user.
• A simple command like window.notifyuser or window.flashtab or window.flashtaskbar
• Maybe even an option to set how many times it should flash
• On page load, it gives the user the options to "Always Allow", "Allow Once", "Always Deny", and "Deny Once".
• An option in the settings to always deny for every site.
• Might become a W3 standard if used widely.

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• Create a "unified set of modern web developer tools"
• Add a .NET/Mono-Wrapper to host both the web browser and the WYSIWYG editor (if such a tool exists, I'm not sure about it) in my own .NET Windows Forms applications. Do this in a highly customizable way to control most aspects of how the browser appears. Uwe Keim

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