Development Blog

getfirebug.com has Firebug 1.11a6

Firebug 1.11a6 fixes 16 issues
Firebug 1.11a6 is compatible with Firefox 16-19

This is the last 1.11 alpha release and we are switching to the beta phase next week. The final Firebug 1.11 release will be available in December.

See some highlights from this release:

• New include() command
• Autocompletion for CSS Queries
• Completion Popup Properly Aligned

New include() command

Firebug supports a new command called include(). This command can be executed on the Command Line (within the Console panel) and used to include a JavaScript file into the current page.

The simplest usage looks as follows:

include("http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.min.js")

If you often including the same script (e.g. jqueryfying your page), you can create a handy alias.

include("http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.min.js", "jquery")

Now you can execute just: include("jquery") to include the same script into the current page.

In order to see list of all defined aliases, type: include(). Note, that aliases are persistent across Firefox restarts.

In order to remove “jquery” alias, type: include(null, "jquery")

(issue 5878)

Autocompletion for CSS Queries

If you deal with CSS you might be often interested which elements actually match specific CSS selector. For this, Firebug offers an Elements side panel, which is available in the CSS panel and now it also supports autocompletion.

Just start typing into the inline editor and Firebug will offer all element names and CSS classes that are available on the page. It’s smart so, if you use element name in your selector it’ll offer only classes that are available for that element.

(issue 5989)

Completion Popup Properly Aligned

This is one of the nifty improvements that makes Firebug a handy tool. The auto-completion popup window is now displayed at the right position – aligned with the expression typed by the user.

Please post feedback in the newsgroup, thanks.

Jan ‘Honza’ Odvarko

Firebug team released Firebug 1.10.6

Firebug 1.10.6 is a maintenance release fixing compatibility problem with Firefox 15. This problem caused the Start Button to disappear from Firefox 15 toolbar. It’s now fixed (see more details in issue 6043).

Please post feedback in the newsgroup, thanks.

Jan ‘Honza’ Odvarko

Firebug team released Firebug 1.10.5

Firebug 1.10.5 is a maintenance release fixing several issues and tested with Firefox 16.

Firebug 1.10.5 fixes 5 issues.

List of issues fixed in this release:

• Location list in the Script panel can be filtered (Issue 5963)
• Title in Firebug detached window is correct (related to Issue 5883)
• Firebug can be opened in popup windows (Issue 5949)
• First-run page is not opened till Firefox restart when Firebug is updated (Issue 5888)
• Firebug properly shows scripts coming from iframes (Issue 5978)

Please post feedback in the newsgroup, thanks.

Jan ‘Honza’ Odvarko

getfirebug.com has Firebug 1.11a5

Firebug 1.11a5 fixes 18 issues
Firebug 1.11a5 is compatible with Firefox 16-19

See some highlights from this release:

• Console support for performance.timing
• Autocompletion for built-in properties
• First Run Page logic improved
• Firebug is available in popups

Support for Navigation Timing

This release introduces new waterfall timing graph displayed in Firebug’s Console panel and visualizing Navigation Timing data (measured events related to page load performance).

You can see the graph if you execute performance.timing expression in Firebug Command Line.

See detailed post about this feature.

Issue 5931

Autocompletion for built-in properties

The Command Line supports auto-completion even for built-in members of String.prototype or Object.prototype and other objects.

Check out online test page.

Issue 959

First Run Page logic improved

We changed logic of the First Run Page, which is opened when Firebug is installed. We use this page to inform users about new features and fixes.

• If Firebug is upgraded the first-run-page appears after Firefox restart
• If Firebug is installed the first-run-page appears immediately
• The first-run-page page is opened in background (the tab is not selected by default)

Issue 5888

Firebug is available in popups

Firebug is again available in popup windows. This nasty bug is fixed and the patch is also ported into Firebug 1.10. Firebug 1.10.5 will be released next week.

Issue 5949

Please post feedback in the newsgroup, thanks.

Jan ‘Honza’ Odvarko

Firebug team released Firebug 1.10.4

Firebug 1.10.4 is maintenance release fixing several minor issues and also tested with Firefox 16.

Firebug 1.10.4 fixes 9 issues.

List of issues fixed in this release:

• Issue 4929: Update list of inherited properties
• Issue 5783: Display of IPv6 addresses with port number is incorrect
• Issue 5859: Delete “element.style” is broken
• Issue 5883: Error “topWindow.exportFirebug is not a function” while Firebug is detached
• Issue 5946: Firebug breaks Firefox UI when disabled
• Issue 5945: Show source link for CSS errors
• Issue 5908: Link to open the complete xhr response in a new Firefox tab does not work
• Issue 5744: Radio button deselects when Firebug is open (situational)
• Issue 5905: inspector blinks

Please post feedback in the newsgroup, thanks.

Jan ‘Honza’ Odvarko

getfirebug.com has Firebug 1.11a4

Firebug 1.11a4 fixes 16 issues.

Another great alpha from the Firebug team. See some highlights from this release:

• Panel for CSS Selector Queries
• Custom Firebug Commands
• Improved $ and $$ Commands

Panel for CSS Selector Queries

Firebug offers new side panel (available in the CSS panel) that allows quick execution of CSS selectors. The panel also shows the list of matching elements.

In order to see list of matching elements for an existing CSS rule, just right click on the rule and pick Get Matching Elements item. The list of elements (together with the CSS selector) will be displayed in the side panel.

Of course, you can also use custom CSS selectors. Just click on the yellow edit line at the top of the side panel and type your own selector.

This feature has been previously implemented in a separate SelectBug extension.

See more in Issue 5931

Custom Firebug Commands

Firebug offers fresh new API that can be used to register new commands for Firebug’s command line. Any Firebug extension can now implement and publish new commands.

Firebug.registerCommand("myCommand", {
    handler: function myCommandHandler(context, args) {
        return "Hello World!";
    },
    description: "My first Firebug command!"
});

That’s it! Such command can be executed in the Command Line as follows:

See more in Issue 5817

Improved $ and $$ Commands

Firebug also improves existing commands for querying DOM elements.

$() command uses querySelector()
$$() command uses querySelectorAll()

It also means that the argument passed in must be CSS selector.

So, for example, if you need to get an element with ID equal to “content” you need to use # character.

$("#content")

If you forget, Firebug will nicely warn you

See more in Issue 5764

Please post feedback in the newsgroup, thanks.

Jan ‘Honza’ Odvarko

getfirebug.com has Firebug 1.11a3

Firebug 1.11a3 fixes 17 issues.

Some highlights from this release:

• Log Function Calls feature has been improved and it also shows the current stack trace (issue 5866).

  




• There is a new infotip in the Cookies panel that previews cookie size (issue 5834).

  




• Another little feature that makes Firebug so great is text cropping in the CSS panel. A huge string could sometimes totally break that window (issue 5879).

  

Firebug team is also hardworking on JSD2 adoption (not part of this release). JSD2 is a new JavasScript Debugging service allowing (among other things) also remote debugging (over TCP/IP) through Remote Debugging Protocol.

The development is happening on a JSD2 Firebug branch and some basic concepts related to the remoting architecture are described on Firebug wiki.

There is still a lot of what to do to finish the work and expose remoting capabilities to extensions, but some basic features like adding breakpoints and stepping already work.

So, stay tuned!

Please post feedback in the newsgroup, thanks.

Jan Honza Odvarko

Firebug team released Firebug 1.10.3.

Firebug 1.10.3 is a maintenance release fixing several minor issues and also tested with Firefox 15, which has been published last week.

Firebug 1.10.3 fixes 12 issues.

Note that Firefox 15 contains a critical memory fix that should solve most of the Firebug memory leaks (also refereed as zombie compartments). We are eagerly waiting for any feedback related to Firefox 15 + Firebug 1.10.3 configuration and its memory footprint so, let us know how it works for you!

Please post feedback in the newsgroup, thanks.

Jan ‘Honza’ Odvarko

getfirebug.com has Firebug 1.11a2

Firebug 1.11a2 fixes 14 issues.

One nice little fix is related to console.table() method.

Firebug is now displaying horizontal scrollbar if there is too much columns (issue 5832).

This method is quite powerful in rendering tabular data and also flexible regarding the input structure.

Check it out by executing the following expression in the command line (assume there are some scripts on the current page):

console.table(document.getElementsByTagName('script'));

Please post feedback in the newsgroup, thanks.

Jan Honza Odvarko

Our team is already working on Firebug 1.11 and the first alpha is now available for download.

This release fixes 21 issues and introduces also several nifty enhancements.

• The HTML panel displayes doc type even for iframes (issue 4626)
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The Net panel indicates when SPDY protocol is in action (issue 5324)
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Event logs (see more about DOM event logging) are automatically linked with the target (issue 5803).
  
  
  
  
  
• Command Line API improved: $x(xpath, contextNode, resultType) This command returns an array of HTML or XML elements matching the given XPath expression (contextNode and resultType arguments are new, issue 18)

Also, if you experienced some problems with the Firebug Start Button that should be automatically available in Firefox toolbar, try this version. A patch is included fixing these problems.

Post feedback in the newsgroup

Jan Honza Odvarko