Firebug/WeeklyUpdates/2008-07-30

Meeting with Rob, Jon, Jan, and John at the Mozilla Summit (with visits from Roc, bz, and Blake). Notes were taken here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=awtg3p8j2p2_53dhzzn4f6

Current State:

Casual JavaScript

• JS Console
• DOM Inspection

Power-User JavaScript

• Net Tab
• Profiling

Advanced JavaScript

• Develop Firebug Extensions
• Script debugging

Casual CSS

• Element Inspection

Power-User CSS

• Layout
• CSS Manipulation

Possible Improvements:

Casual JavaScript

• View bound Event Listeners (Oli/smaug)
  • bz to file a bug
• Better error reporting (dying in XPConnect, getting converted to a string)
• Better Error Information (put an intern on it)
  • Codes for errors
  • i18n of error messages

Power-User JavaScript

• Edit a script and override all future loads of that script
• Add a new script to a page and have it always be added
  • No XPCOM access
• When exactly setTimeouts are firing
• Callback when any event fires
  • The target
  • What captured (where it bubbled)
  • A full event log
• Canvas Debugging (tab?)
  • Throwing exceptions for errors
• DOM property mutation or modification events
  • Distinct from attribute mutation (scrollTop is modified, for example)

Advanced JavaScript

• When exception is thrown, stop execution and allow for resume
  • (I think this is implemented since Firebug 1.1 as Scripts > BreakOnErrors jjb)

Casual CSS

• The ability to add new CSS rules
  • Build a new stylesheets, add the rules to it
• Export all CSS changes (add, change) to a new stylesheet
• Hiding the results from reset.css files (they clutter up the display)

Power-User CSS

• Edit a stylesheet and override all future loads of that sheet
• Add a new stylesheet to a page and have it always be added
• Style mutation events
  • Figure out when a CSS style gets changed (and where?)

Advanced CSS

• Cost of a CSS rule
• Reflows (number of reflows)
• Information on what causes a reflow flush (for example: offsetTop, getBoundingClientRect)
• How long a repaint takes to happen
  • (repaint events for the window * onbeforepaint (DOM), onafterpaint (XPCOM)) * bug 239074
  • What causes the repainting to occur? Get the coords of what was repainted?
• Track when invalidates happen and what has to be redrawn (collected and then repainted)
  • Expensive, invalidates are a high volume event

Misc

• Better XHR logging (smaug)
• Intercept the content to be modified
• Firebug Extension Repository
  • Possibly a wiki
• Monitoring document changes (an event with old document and new document)
• Getting the prototype of an object (__proto__?)
• Tab watching