Web Console: where you want it to be, with nicer completion and more

May 28 2011

The latest Firefox Aurora features a number of improvements to the Web Console. Take a look at the Web Console at the bottom of the screenshot:

Firefox 6 Web Console

First of all, the Web Console is at the bottom of the window! Many users liked the Web Console at the top of the window, but others wanted the Web Console at the bottom of the window or in a separate window. All three of those choices are now available.
console log messages (like “This is a log message”) now include a link to the file and line that generated the message. This makes it easy to get some context around that log output.
Requests to file:// URLs now appear in the Web Console

Here’s something else that’s new:

New Autocompletion

Previously, the Web Console provided suggestions to speed your typing. You could cycle through the suggestions, but it wasn’t always clear what the choices would be. Firefox is now even better at giving you suggestions and saving keystrokes with its new popup display of completion suggestions.

We refined several other aspects of the Web Console’s behavior. Notably, Firefox’s native console object now includes the debug and trace methods that appear in other console objects. We plan to expand the console object further in the next Firefox release.

Thanks to Mihai Sucan, David Dahl and Panagiotis Astithas for these improvements to the Web Console! Thanks also to the reviewers who helped ensure that the code is top notch: Shawn Wilsher, Gavin Sharp, Dave Townsend, Rob Campbell and Neil Rashbrook. Finally, thanks to Eric Shepherd for his documentation work on the changes.

– Kevin Dangoor on behalf of the Mozilla Developer Tools team

21 responses

Pingback from Mozilla DevTools: Web Console: where you want it to be, with nicer completion and more | Firefox Latest News on May 28, 2011 at 7:38 am::

[...] Planet Mozilla No Comments May 28, 2011 By Giovanni Panasiti in Planet Mozilla Tags: completion, Console, DevTools, More, Mozilla, nicer, want « Chris Lyon: Moving on… [...]
Peter Novak wrote on May 28, 2011 at 9:36 am:

Is it possible to make Web Console remember state of Net/CSS/JS/WebDev toggles after reopening it?

It is a bit annoying to set it each time I open Web Console – I don’t want to see Net and CSS errors 99% of time.
Anonymous wrote on May 29, 2011 at 11:55 pm:

Please don’t take up that much space with a “Position” drop-down menu on the web console. Consider making it an option in the right-click menu for the web console instead, since it seems conceptually similar to toolbar customization. Or better yet, let the user click and drag on the “title” area of the web console to either dock it at the top or bottom or make it a separate window. Either of those options would save space and avoid additional visual noise that most users won’t need more than once.
Pingback from Aurora 6 is here ✩ Mozilla Hacks – the Web developer blog on May 30, 2011 at 2:17 pm::

[...] Improvements to the Web Console [...]
pd wrote on May 30, 2011 at 2:24 pm:

i *still* do not understand why you seem to be duplicating the work already done in Firebug.
1. ans wrote on May 31, 2011 at 12:12 am:
  
  @pd, native code vs js code, performance benefits, I’m assuming..
Danny Moules wrote on May 31, 2011 at 9:14 am::

@pd For one thing, Firebug doesn’t always actually work as intended. Additionally it’s extremely resource-hungry and I’ve managed to make it crash the browser more a few times by throwing too many operations at it. A better question might be: why _not_.
kneekoo wrote on May 31, 2011 at 10:58 am::

@pd: Don’t you get annoyed when Firebug is not available in the latest Firefox? That’s quite important for me so sure I want all that functionality inside Firefox.

I can hardly wait the day when the most useful development tools will be part of Firefox AND will also perform as light as possible so it doesn’t stress the browser/system resources like our current add-ons.
Sridhar wrote on July 11, 2011 at 9:35 am:

Inspect elements coming soon?
1. kdangoor wrote on July 11, 2011 at 6:23 pm:
  
  Within the next few months, we will have a release with a nice element inspection feature.
  1. ElAlecs wrote on July 12, 2011 at 5:54 pm:
    
    That’s great news!!
Pingback from Mozilla Firefox 6 ya está disponible de forma oficial : Soft Zone : Blog sobre Software con tutoriales de ayuda y noticias on August 17, 2011 at 5:55 am::

[...] – Mejoras en la usabilidad de la Web Console [...]
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Pingback from FireFox – Version 6.0 « Toms IT Blog on August 17, 2011 at 7:52 am::

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Pingback from Mozilla 官方正式发布 Firefox 6 更新列表出现 » NoName on August 17, 2011 at 7:59 am::

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KamKam wrote on August 19, 2011 at 8:27 am:

I’d forgotten the wen console even existed and had to look it up to figure out what it was… Possibly a couple of new features, but largely useless until you are at least replicate all the functionality in Firebug… and we haven’t even got onto all the additional plugins that work with Firebug…
Sharun wrote on August 24, 2011 at 7:06 am::

I hate the new menu on Firefox. I tried to do a system restore to get back to my menu and it worked once then it went back to the new menu.

Why don’t they leave alone what works????
1. Phil Fletcher wrote on September 4, 2011 at 10:11 pm:
  
  Absolutely agree. Bring back the old menu – or tell me how I can bring it back.
  More helpful and more intuitive.
  1. kdangoor wrote on September 6, 2011 at 3:50 pm:
    
    I assume you’re talking about the Firefox menu on Windows… If so, I think this add-on might be what you’re looking for:
    
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/new-old-menu/
Pingback from BagiBagi - Mozilla Firefox 6.0 on August 26, 2011 at 1:23 am::

[...] Improved usability of the Web Console [...]
Pingback from Firefox 6 dentro do prazo | TRIBUNA GAUCHA on August 29, 2011 at 1:54 am::

[...] (até mesmo do Flash Player), a diminuição do tempo de inicialização e a possibilidade de mover o Web Console para outras partes da janela e até mesmo para uma janela separada. O Web Console também ganhou o [...]