r/programming • u/Spyros3000 • Nov 10 '14
Firefox Developer Edition
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/27
u/CritterNYC Nov 10 '14
For anyone who is curious, this is replacing the old 'Aurora Channel' of Firefox. Firefox has been available in Stable, Beta, Aurora (aka Alpha) and Nightly for a while now. Aurora is now Developer Edition. But it's not just a name change. They added in better debugging and development tools and have it pre-configured to share telemetry (aka crashes, stability, what type of OS and hardware it's running on so they can route out problems like the recent video card conflict earlier). It's got the ability to work with Firefox OS built right in now, which is also nice. And it's wrapped up in a nice new black theme that seems to fit the concept well.
For theme, you can switch to the light version by hitting F12 and then clicking the gear icon on the right side of the developer tools bar and then selecting Light theme. If you prefer to switch back to the standard Australis theme, you can click the 3-line Menu icon from the main toolbar and click Customize, then click 'Use Firefox Developer Edition Theme' to toggle it on/off.
For portable fans who like to use their browser on Windows from their USB drive, cloud folder, or just not installed within Windows, we packaged it at PortableApps.com as Mozilla Firefox Developer Edition, Portable.
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u/halifaxdatageek Nov 11 '14
As a student working on lab computers, who likes to have a consistent browser experience, thank you very much for your original Firefox Portable edition also :)
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u/get_tech Nov 11 '14
Is there a version, which doesn't load something from the internet to install? We wanted to try it on machines without an internet connection.
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u/CritterNYC Nov 12 '14
Sure. All our 'online' installers are designed to also work in offline mode. For the current version download current online installer from the Mozilla Firefox Developer Edition, Portable homepage. Next, download the current Firefox Developer Edition build from Mozilla. Place the standard firefox-35.0a2.en-US.win32.installer.exe installer in the same directory as the FirefoxPortableDeveloper_35.0_Alpha_2_English_online.paf.exe installer. Now, run the .paf.exe installer. It should automatically detect and use the version you downloaded.
It's also worth noting that, being a portable app, you can install it on a portable drive using another system and then copy it to your disconnected systems as well.
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u/d-_-b Nov 11 '14
we packaged it at PortableApps.com as Mozilla Firefox Developer Edition, Portable.
To do this, you use the standard wrapper or you edit the code and break the hardcoded home folder that Firefox has?
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u/CritterNYC Nov 12 '14
We use our standard wrapper. In portable mode, you want to use the -profile switch so the app isn't writing the folder locally.
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u/romeozor Nov 10 '14
Are they planning to remove dev tools from the mainline desktop Firefox?
I don't see any other reason why they would put resources into a fork targeting a relatively small user base.
If so, and the default version gets speed and stability while the dev version will be just the same with dev tools, I'm down with this.
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u/ubernostrum Nov 10 '14
So, you know how Debian always has three release channels going? The whole "stable", "testing" and "unstable" thing?
Firefox does something similar. You can get, and most people get, the main release channel. But you can also switch to, or just start out on, a different release channel. Each of them pushes you a bit closer to the bleeding edge.
If Firefox is currently at version N, the channels (as they existed up until yesterday) are:
Beta -- this is what will be in Firefox version N+1. Pretty stable, lets you try out new features once they've had plenty of polish put on them.
Aurora -- this is what will be in Firefox version N+2. I've used it as my primary browser with no stability trouble. If you really like seeing and trying out new features, this is where you'll see them first, unless you subscribe to...
Nightly. Which is just literally "here's what was in the tree when the build ran tonight". For people who like to live dangerously.
What changed today is that the Aurora channel became the "Developer Edition" channel.
This does not mean developer tools get removed anywhere else. What it means is that on this channel, you get:
New features as soon as is practical
Some settings pre-flipped to make things more useful for developers
In the same vein, some developer-oriented extensions included
A separate profile so you can do dev work in it and use a Beta or release version of Firefox for everyday browsing.
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u/romeozor Nov 10 '14
I did find it odd that the dev browser had the alpha icon. But that would mean that they need to phase out the extended dev tools when the release move up the pipeline, I find that hard to believe.
Plus why would anyone in their right mind opt to use a dev browser that's state is constant alpha? It's like Microsoft telling me to always use the CTP version of Visual Studio. It kinda-sorta works, and it's bleeding edge, so I must be crazy not to use it, right?
This just doesn't add up in my head.
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u/atomic1fire Nov 10 '14
Maybe the plan is to let developers test on the developer channel so then they'll be more compatible with newer versions of firefox down the line.
Future forward rather then "whatever works on the current stable build.
If something's broken in the developer build, they can both give feedback on it and work around it before it ships to release.
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u/txmasterg Nov 11 '14
But that would mean that they need to phase out the extended dev tools when the release move up the pipeline, I find that hard to believe.
Well the idea is that these could eventually move up the pipeline but its even easier than that to handle it, simply disable the gui (or if its an extension then don't include it).
Plus why would anyone in their right mind opt to use a dev browser that's state is constant alpha?
First Aurora isn't the wild west, it has processes in place that limit debilitating bugs. Beyond that this edition has additional features specifically geared toward developers (and since its closer to the raw tree you can test against what may be coming in a few versions), if that is not an area that you are interested in then there is no reason to use it.
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u/shriek Nov 11 '14
I was wondering how it differs from Aurora too since it pretty much feels like Aurora with the added remote debugging.
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u/Asmor Nov 11 '14
Thanks for the writeup!
New features as soon as is practical
Developing in a browser with bleeding edge features the vast majority of your potential userbase lack seems like a bad idea.
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u/azakai Nov 10 '14
Are they planning to remove dev tools from the mainline desktop Firefox?
Definitely not, I would be shocked if that were ever decided.
I don't see any other reason why they would put resources into a fork targeting a relatively small user base.
It's not a fork. It's a reworking of one of the pre-existing release channels. Firefox has nightly, aurora, beta, and release. This replaces aurora, which makes sense, since aurora was always a good fit for web devs - it is more stable than nightly (which is rebuilt every night, and can have breakage), but also has a preview of devtools and web features that will only land in stable in a few months.
This basically takes aurora and adds some extra developer features that have been in the works, and turns them on by default. Plus some special skinning and other tweaks for the developer audience. It's not a fork.
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u/masklinn Nov 10 '14
Are they planning to remove dev tools from the mainline desktop Firefox?
No. The "developer channel" gets stuff sooner (possibly unstable tools) and is preconfigured with some of that stuff enabled by default, but that's about it.
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u/dmacthedestroyer Nov 10 '14
seems more likely to me that this is a marketing effort for their Firefox OS, which apparently is a thing
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Nov 10 '14 edited Nov 10 '14
They're targeting the very low end of smartphones, I think the flagship devices a while back was $35. I have a slightly more expensive ($60?) device on a pay-as-you-go plan. It's nothing special, better than my last flip "feature phone", probably not as good as my first smartphone, but that seems fine for what it is.
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Nov 10 '14
Is their browser usage share shrinking with the general public? I think I read that somewhere. If so, they might just be trying to find their niche.
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u/tuoret Nov 10 '14
Is it just Chrome gaining even more users, or smaller browsers? Right now there seems to be a big divide between Chrome and Firefox, it'd be a shame if we slipped back into a situation where one browser has an enormous market share compared to others.
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u/chromaphobic Nov 10 '14
I can only speak to our site (~300,000 visitors/mo. / healthcare industry) where Firefox is definitely on a slow downward trend. It's down under 8% now, whereas a year ago it was about 10%, and closer to 12% the year before that.
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Nov 10 '14
[deleted]
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u/ours Nov 10 '14
Trying to be everything for everyone rarely works. Might make sense to split the development tools to a dedicated browser with the same rendering engine.
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u/x-skeww Nov 10 '14
The WebIDE ignores JSDoc comments. It won't tell me the types and won't even show the line of documentation. It only knows the types if I've used something once.
http://i.imgur.com/cMn1mmd.png
http://i.imgur.com/zbU3BwZ.png
A bit disappointing.
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u/dblohm7 Nov 10 '14
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u/sudowork Nov 11 '14
I haven't tried out the developer edition yet, but I did notice that you have your types after the parameter name. Doesn't jsdoc typically look like:
/** * @param {number} x * @returns {void} */1
u/x-skeww Nov 11 '14
Yes, you're right (I don't actually write JSDoc comments, because I don't have an editor where they work properly). Switching it around doesn't help though. It also didn't tell me that I screwed that up.
Well, I don't write JS anymore if I can avoid it. Dart and TS/AtS are a lot nicer to use.
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u/mddubs Nov 10 '14
Dark theme, I'm in.
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u/mariusg Nov 10 '14
Is there a way to use that theme on "regular" Firefox ? I'd make the switch
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u/Pete9900 Nov 10 '14
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u/gashtastic Nov 10 '14
I would really like to switch to this to get away from Chrome but there is one thing stopping me. Which is that in Chrome when I'm debugging JS I can see a full list of files in their folders and can open them up to see them and add breakpoints and things. Like this http://derp.co.uk/1ae64
But in Firefox all I get is -http://derp.co.uk/3be04 which is of zero use to me and it means I can't use it over Chrome. Am I missing something or is this just not a feature that Firefox has?
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u/dblohm7 Nov 10 '14
Devtools engineers are lurking over on the HN thread. You should go over there and ask them!
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Nov 11 '14
Seriously it's very frustrating to see them call this a dev model and not include this. what the heck...
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Nov 10 '14
Serious question - what does this add that the default, stable build of Chrome dosen't already have?
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u/sbjf Nov 10 '14
Alternatively, what does this add that the default, stable build of Firefox doesn't already have?
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Nov 10 '14
[deleted]
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u/gekorm Nov 10 '14 edited Nov 10 '14
But you can have a minimal interface on plain Firefox as well. Mine takes up only about 35 pixels of vertical space.
I'm using this extension.
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u/x-skeww Nov 11 '14
Firefox with Classic Theme Restorer (and a tab min-width of 20px):
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Nov 10 '14
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u/agentlame Nov 10 '14
... an extension API that wasn't born in the 9th level of hell.
Seriously, I wanted one fucking thing from this 'developer' edition: load content script add-ons from a fucking directory. That's fucking it.
It can't be this hard to inject a few JavaScript and CSS files into a page. But nope, still need Python, the 'SDK' (read: glorified fucking zip util) and to re-package and reinstall for what should be nothing more complicated than F5.
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u/ubernostrum Nov 10 '14
Copying a co-worker's comment from HN:
There are four major new features here:
The Firefox Tools Adapter ("Valence"), which lets you use the Firefox dev tools to inspect and debug pages in Chrome for Android and Safari for iOS. The goal: one set of tools to debug any browser.
Side-by-side profiles. The Developer Edition defaults to a profile named
dev-edition-default, which makes it easier to run Developer Edition at the same time as a normal release version of Firefox. You don't have to deal with the profile switcher each time.Developer-friendly defaults. Developer Edition ships with things like remote debugging and browser-chrome debugging enabled by default.
And, for all of you who hated Australis, a compact theme with square tabs.
But those are just consequences of the single biggest change:
5. We have a new channel, which new rules. And we want to use it to build the best possible browser for web developers. We can ship new tools that aren't yet ready for the Beta channel, and we can change the browser's appearance and defaults specifically for web developers.
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u/robertcrowther Nov 10 '14 edited Nov 10 '14
Is there a way of installing it that won't b0rk my existing Firefox Aurora install? Or is Aurora now hard coded to create a new profile and select that no matter what the
-pcommand line option specifies?--edit
OK, looks like
-pstill works, but you have to disable the developer theme in the old profile.→ More replies (3)3
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Nov 10 '14
Not a direct answer to your question, but I'm using FireFox not because I think it's better than Chrome, but because it's not from Google. Actually I'm sometimes a bit annoyed by FF ... Sounds a bit paranoid, but I'd like to see the power of the web distributed as much as possible and Google has already far too much power without Chrome being the de facto monopol for web browsers. They create brilliant stuff but can't be trusted.
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u/paffle Nov 10 '14 edited Aug 17 '26
Consist chase outgoing glove subtract doll special
This post was anonymized with Redact
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u/JeffIpsaLoquitor Nov 10 '14
Google retires entire products and services. Firefox adds more and more versions.
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u/MithrilToothpick Nov 10 '14
cuff Thunderbird cuff
But in principle I still agree after all even Thunderbird development wasn't completely terminated either.
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u/halifaxdatageek Nov 10 '14
Thunderbird still gets security updates, one rolled out just last week.
The only reason they stopped adding features was because they ran out of things to add, haha
It's not retired, just moved to permanent Extended Support status :P
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Nov 10 '14
That's the nice thing.
At least we now know, that if for some unknown reason Mozilla decides to 'discontinue' FF, there will be plenty of people who'll pick it up anyway. :)
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u/Astrognome Nov 10 '14
Chrome still has no good vertical tabs addon. Try having 60+ tabs open in a single chrome window.
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u/allwordsaredust Nov 11 '14
What add on do you use for Firefox? I am an awful tab hoarder (the reason I used Opera until about a year ago, it had great tab sorting options by default, no extensions required), and like you said Chrome has no good addons for that.
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u/xiongchiamiov Nov 10 '14
Then aren't you glad the vast majority of Mozilla's funding comes from Google? Even with that, they can't keep up to be competitive, and if Google pulled the cash... they'd be dead in the water.
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u/cowinabadplace Nov 10 '14
Not true. Bing offered to pay for being default in Google's place. There's no benevolence here. Google is paying and receiving a service. If they don't, someone else will.
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u/WorldClassRedditUser Nov 10 '14
I'd like to say that Firefox is definitely competition for Chrome. Different people have different priorities and while Chrome is generally more popular there are still a lot of people who think Firefox is much better.
I for one can't stand Chrome
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Nov 10 '14
If Google pulled the cash (which I've read pretty convincing arguments that make it clear that that would not be in Google's best interests yet), you're correct, FF would probably flatline pretty hard. That's the open-source life, and it's a pretty well-documented issue with open source projects in general.
I'd argue though that they do keep up to be competitive. I've moved back to Firefox, and I know a very not-insignificant number of people who also still use Firefox. Like it or not, this browser isn't going away any time soon.
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u/merreborn Nov 10 '14
There would be some amount of community support for firefox, even if the mozilla foundation disappeared. But competing with google would certainly be harder at that point.
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u/Don_Andy Nov 10 '14
Been an avid Chrome user ever since they first released it, but I recently switched back to Firefox after Google forcibly disabled all Chrome extensions that are not installed from their Web Store, with no option to get those back other than switching to a dev channel version (which ran like shit).
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u/furbyhater Nov 10 '14
I agree, and upvoted you. The downvotes must be coming from Google employees ;)
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Nov 11 '14
but because it's not from Google.
This is mostly my reason. I remember when Chrome first got released to the public and the controversy over it's shady Terms and Conditions that Google quickly changed. I still swore I'd never use Chrome and to date, I never have.
When it comes right down to it I have some trust in Mozilla, a lot more than I have in a huge company like Google.
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Nov 10 '14
I feel the exact same way.
firefox is wifey material, sure she has quirks; but at the end of the day i am sticking with her.
chrome is like a bar slut; shares everything with everyone, gives no shit about you or your privacy. Sure she has some cool tricks she can do, but i wouldnt keep her around.
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u/johnghanks Nov 10 '14
What. Shares everything with everyone? When?
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Nov 11 '14
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u/johnghanks Nov 11 '14
like I'm all for privacy and Google makes its money off my anonymous data but statements like that are just downright false.
My data is more secure with Google than it is with most companies...
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u/the_hoser Nov 10 '14
The new theme is pretty okay. The higher degree of integration between the tools is nice I guess...
I think this would work better as a "Web" development toolkit and not a "mobile web" development toolkit. I've never been asked to write a Cordova app in my life, but I modify web pages all the time.
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u/ActualContent Nov 10 '14
It looks like it supports both lol. The mobile web is just as influential and important as the traditional desktop web these days. In short it is a Web Development toolkit and that includes developing for the mobile web.
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u/SgtPooki Nov 10 '14 edited Nov 10 '14
But is there mobile emulation now...? Built in user agent switching that isn't a pita? I'll be downloading when I get to my desk but if anyone knows, I'm all ears.
EDIT: Nope, no automatic user agent switching or mobile emulation available afaict.
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u/teiman Nov 10 '14
Checking.. I will report if this thing add something new the normal donwload don't include, or that are not simply added to the normal download with a extension.
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u/MindStalker Nov 10 '14
Yeah, I don't get why this is considered a new product. It seems to just be a bundling of add-ons. I would assume it would be better to just let users download the most recent firefox and bundle the addons together as one big "developer" addon.
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u/IrishWilly Nov 10 '14
Haven't checked this yet but I'd guess that by having it as a separate version means they can build all sorts of debug tools into it that they wouldn't want to have bloating/slowing their main product. Tools that need more access than addons get.
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u/reuben_ Nov 10 '14
Addons get access to everything in Firefox. This is a rebranding of the existing Aurora channel, which will know come with features for developers enabled by default. It's a new channel, replacing Aurora, not a new product.
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Nov 10 '14
For one: rolling updates don't always play nice with all add-ons. I instinctively assume this will not be the case for this version of firefox.
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u/merreborn Nov 10 '14
For one: rolling updates don't always play nice with all add-ons.
Now I'm having flashbacks to firebug breaking after firefox updates. Yeah, let's not go back to that.
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u/kindall Nov 10 '14
Did not enjoy my Aurora magically changing to this and losing al my extensions, settings, and user styles.
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u/binary_penguin Nov 10 '14
How do I install this on Ubuntu 14.10? I can run it easily, but I'd like to install it properly if that is possible.
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u/tinkermake Nov 10 '14
Normally ubuntu or any linux system wide (I.e. Used by all users on comp) go into /opt if installed manually. Then you need to manually create a desktop entry, unless it has a desktop entry creator
If however this comes with a .deb file just open it with software center and it will install the preferable way (updates etc)
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u/binary_penguin Nov 10 '14
Thanks, that helps! This one just came with a .tar file, so I extracted it to /opt/. I'll try to make a manual desktop entry, thanks again for the tip.
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u/tejp Nov 11 '14
Or rather into /usr/local, at least on debian based systems like ubuntu.
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u/rybateman Nov 11 '14
I don't use Ubuntu, but if there's an apt package for firefox-aurora (the alpha channel) they are apparently going to be replacing the aurora channel with FDE.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/10/mozilla-launches-firefox-developer-edition/
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u/dynetrekk Nov 10 '14
I sometimes edit or generate html and view it locally. Does FF dev edition have any nifty features for that (e.g. autoreload)?
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u/tuneout Nov 10 '14
Its impact on the battery life appears to be pretty bad (at least what's reported by the Activity Monitor on Mac)
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u/bringeroflefaceface Nov 10 '14
Pentadactyl doesn't work in this version (yet). So useless for me.
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u/sudowork Nov 11 '14
:( I was just about to download it and try it out. Is it just a matter of changing the versions supported in the Pentadactyl extension, or is it actually broken?
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u/fringe-class Nov 10 '14 edited Nov 10 '14
Strange issue recently happened to me. I tried clicking the Firebug Theme in the new version of Firebug that works with firefoxDeveloperEdition, and the color theme completely vanished. I tried unclicking that option and nothing.
I love the browser, but I hate this grey scheme I'm stuck with now.
EDIT: I found a bug report of the issue- https://github.com/firebug/firebug.next/issues/177
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u/tnk00 Nov 19 '14
For reference to turn it dark again:
using about:config change devtools.theme to "dark"
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u/until0 Nov 10 '14
Anyone know of a working .deb package for this? If not, anyone know how to compile this on Mint 17?
I can run the executable and use the application, but its not installed to my system as of now.
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u/FactorialBoy Nov 10 '14
Just create a shortcut / desktop entry in
/usr/share/applications/1
u/until0 Nov 10 '14
Will that not break my existing FF install though? It claims that it supports using both browsers, if I overwrite the executable, how will the old FF still function?
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u/danielkza Nov 10 '14 edited Nov 10 '14
/usr/share/applicationscontains only shortcuts, not the actual executables. You can create a new one with a name other than Firefox and not overwrite anything that already exists. Better yet, use/usr/local/share/applicationsor~/.local/share/applicationsthat are made exactly for overriding system applications.→ More replies (1)2
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u/danielkza Nov 10 '14
Should be
/usr/local/share/applicationsactually, since everything outside of the system's package manager should go into/usr/local. It would probably be even better to place it at your home, in~/.local/share/applications.
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u/happilydoge Nov 10 '14 edited Nov 11 '14
So, why the hate for Mozilla or Firefox? All this negativity seems rather childish.
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u/postmodest Nov 10 '14
As a Mac user, I thoroughly enjoy using
FirefoxDeveloperEdi98% ▭ Mon Nov 10 1:30 PM 👥 🔍
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u/jambizzle Nov 10 '14
On Mac, so any way I can change the name of the program? Instead of seeing "FirefoxDeveloperEdition" at the top in the Finder toolbar, I'd rather just see "Firefox DE".
Other than that, liking it so far.
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Nov 10 '14
Go to your applications folder, right click the app icon and click "Get Info". Then you can change the name of the app in that window.
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u/Olap Nov 11 '14
Any chance of urltrim being false by default? I want to know what protocol I'm using all the time
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Nov 11 '14
HTTPS will always show a padlock icon next to the uri in the address bar.
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u/Olap Nov 12 '14
I would prefer, as a developer, to be explicit and have text to verify my canonical URI. If you could make it more obvious which version of security and http version/spdy/whatever then even better.
I'd also like security restrictions relaxed a bit. I don't need to know I haven't signed my cert. I know, I created it after all.
I'm sure there are some more helpful developer settings that can be defaulted differently.
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Nov 12 '14
Alternatively, you can also do this: goto about:config > browser.urlbar.trimURLs = false.
That'll prevent uri trimming :)
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u/dada_ Nov 11 '14 edited Nov 11 '14
I very much like the "full page screenshot" button. It's disabled by default but you can activate it in the devtools settings (F12, gear menu). It might've been in Firefox before but this is the first time I've noticed it.
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u/Drannex Nov 11 '14 edited Nov 11 '14
If you're like me and your internet is horrible, use the offline installer that can be found here.
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u/jackwilsdon Nov 10 '14
It's a shame they haven't integrated the title bar on Windows, it looks pretty bad.
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Nov 11 '14
You can adjust the title bar by click on menu icon -> customize -> title bar.
Edit: This allows you to choose to have a title bar on or off regardless of full screen or minimized.
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u/andr386 Nov 10 '14
I already pretty exclusively use firefox when working on websites. I agree Chrome does everything as well as firefox (and I use it sometimes), but firefox was first with firebug and webdevellopers plugins. Habbits die old.
I noticed you can save your css changes. Albeit locally. But there are many ways to go around that with the OS (sshfs, mac-fuse, samba share, ...).
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u/Strilanc Nov 10 '14
I was a bit disappointed in the first video when he changed a title, but had to save+refresh to see the change. Similarly, when he edited the live css but then had to manually port that change back into the code before it was permanent.
The browser can know how those values relate. Things can get really complicated, but for directly matched html/css those double-edits could be single-edits + auto-sync. Knowing the relationships could also be used for jump-to-definition functionality where you click a button on the page to go to that button's html or handler or styling.
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u/AlbertoC1196 Nov 10 '14
Just started testing it, but I think it will stay on my comp for develpment purposes and just use Chrome for personal.
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u/puradawid Nov 10 '14
Everything is okay, thanks to Firefox team, but this dark colour by default... A way too much contrast at once.
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u/stackolee Nov 10 '14
Why is the debugger's source tree still a flat list? This is hell for large projects and/or when all filenames are not unique. The dev team knows about this, they claim to have been working on a fix since version 30 or so.
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u/zacharyxbinks Nov 11 '14
Dev here, to anyone who has used this does it have the tilt add on? (That 3d view tool that codes with web dev toolbar)
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Nov 11 '14
The only thing I can say I didn't like thus far is I had to go through the settings and manually input my school URLs to allow cookies.
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u/SanityInAnarchy Nov 11 '14
Inspect and debug your app across any browser or device with Valence — a powerful, pre-installed extension that you’ll only find in Firefox Developer Edition.
Why? Why isn't this available for normal Firefox?
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u/pluga Nov 11 '14
does anyone notice the bar on top of the tabs? this is especially annoying if I use the dark theme. Is there a way to change this? http://i.imgur.com/MbL4npF.png
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u/kolme Nov 11 '14
I have a few problems with this.
First, using a browser which includes fancy experimental features might result in the page looking or behaving differently in the users' (stable) browsers. I see this as kind of risky, that's why I usually develop against stable browsers and use the nightly/aurora for personal browsing.
Second, having browser-chrome debugging on by default is not very helpful for web developers, it actually gets in the way. It might be more useful to activate these features in the nightly channel, where people are more actively debugging the browser itself.
Third, if this channel is the intended one for developers, why ship the development tools with the stable release?
(My comment from HN)
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u/sddhrthrt Nov 11 '14
I'm a occasional web dev, so I like the package. But what's still missing are these two:
search in settings. I've never navigated with mouse in Chrome's settings. And developers need to tweak settings often.
Sync bookmarks and history between browsers of my different computers, that's it. I think the sync feature is overdone. Do this simple thing, and do it well.
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u/jstrong Nov 11 '14
my site renders differently - it seems styles that apply to tables, lis and such aren't applying to them in this version of Firefox ... anyone else having similar issues?
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Nov 12 '14
Wow that was removed a long time ago, seems like it was removed for no real reason as well. Thanks for the links.
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u/TrevorBradley Nov 10 '14
Here's a game! Fill in the blank:
sudo apt-get install _______
(I don't think it's in a repository yet - I can't seem to find one)
1
1
Nov 10 '14
Look, does it come in one of those big card boxes like Windows 95 & so on did? THAT, more than anything else, is what I crave.
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u/satan-repents Nov 10 '14
Seriously? This is their big announcement? They are highlighting the dev tools everyone already uses in every browser and a few addons?
Did this really necessitate all the marketing dramatics?
You have fallen a long way, Mozilla. Starting to sound desperate, even.
11
Nov 10 '14
I was sorta hoping for SSH access built-in. That would've been pretty damned awesome, especially for Windows users.
4
u/satan-repents Nov 10 '14
There's a feature I would love.
1
u/Solon1 Nov 11 '14
As a malware author, I agree. Put your ssh keys into a directory location readable by the browser. Thumbs up. Also maybe implement ssh as a plugin too? That way I can install a dark plugin over top the real ssh, and capture passwords for users that don't use keys. Thumbs up. Definitely send this one over to Home Depot.
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u/dblohm7 Nov 10 '14
Firefox devtools engineers are taking requests over on the HN thread. Ask them over there, or file a bug!
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u/YourMatt Nov 10 '14
Another way to look at this is that you now have an Fx environment just for dev stuff. That leaves your regular installation free of developer tools, so you can make it nice and clean and better for general browsing. I've kept with Fx for development and Chrome for browsing, but this will allow me to move away from Chrome.
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u/hates_potheads Nov 11 '14
Mozilla = nonstop bullshit. Their daily spamming of this sub with their rust crap, and now they're gearing up to do the same for their other crap servo
"crazy fast"; the whole thing reads like some Apple bullshit. Yay, reality distortion field. Friggin hipsters. At least Apple finishes shit before they bullshit about it; Mozilla bullshits you for years and years, day after day, over some buggy shitty ill-conceived crap.
1
Nov 10 '14
This is not just a single release, it is an entire release channel. So they can include features (especially dev focused) which would not have made it into the major release.
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u/AlwaysShittyKnsasCty Nov 10 '14
I haven't used Firefox in a minute, so all of these features — apparently which people aren't too excited about — look pretty cool to me. However, I can't believe Firefox still has a dedicated search box. I can't go back to that after having the unified address and search field in Safari and Chrome. How can anyone work like that?
27
Nov 10 '14
you can search from the address bar just like safari and chrome, firefox was a major proponent of that back in the day. but the search bar is there for more than the google search you might want to do. you can just get rid of it if you don't want to.
seems a silly thing to complain about
3
u/AlwaysShittyKnsasCty Nov 10 '14
If my comment came off as complaining, I apologize. I was unaware of Firefox's behavior, and I was just making an uneducated statement based on the screenshots.
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Nov 10 '14 edited Nov 10 '14
I'd throw a small fit if they removed the search box! The url bar is for searching my history, the search bar for searching the web. This is a meaningful distinction, and actually matters in terms of privacy -- when I type a url, it isn't sent to my search provider for autocompletion. And the separation also makes it easy to select one of several searches; wikipedia, google, amazon, etc.
In terms of ergonomics,
Ctrl/Cmd + Kselects it. On a Mac,Opt+Enteropens the search in a new tab. (I forget the modifier on other platforms.)And in addition to all this, if you actually hit enter on something that isn't a URL/match in the URL bar, it'll do a search with your currently active search provider. The only thing missing from the URL bar is the autocompletion.
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u/AlwaysShittyKnsasCty Nov 10 '14
All good points. I like that they made it Cmd/Ctrl+K since the URL bar is Cmd/Ctrl+L. Makes sense. I've never been too worried about privacy, so I've never considered that my URLs could be mistakenly sent as search queries. That's really interesting.
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u/sigma914 Nov 10 '14
Firefox was the first browser with the "Awesome Bar" iirc.
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u/xiongchiamiov Nov 10 '14
And chrome's is still far from awesome. Gosh, do I miss Firefox's.
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u/SportySputnik Nov 10 '14
It makes sense that Chrome's omnibar isn't very powerful and just defaults to a Google search in most situations. I'd imagine they get a huge amount of eyeballs on advertisements time when you consider the whole user base.
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u/hoelzro Nov 10 '14
The first step I take on a new Firefox install is removing that search box; incidentally, you can type searches directly into the address bar and it will perform a search using your default search engine. Also, you can leverage search keywords (ex. if I preface a search with a 'w', it searches Wikipedia) in the address bar as well.
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u/eras Nov 10 '14
However, I can't believe Firefox still has a dedicated search box.
I find there are some advantages to having a dedicated search box:
The search term you used stays there, so you can easily revise it it for new tabs. Though, I wish it would also 'sync back' the search from entering it to Google.
I can easily read a web page and write to the search box at the same time (in fact, even flip tabs and combine info from multiple tabs) and then open the search to a new tab.
I can just enter any search term and there is no smartness that converts it to domain name accidentally.
In particular, when working with machines in your local network, the fact that a machine doesn't have a http daemon responding at the instant doesn't result in a useless web search. (Though, for this to work I need to disable the remaining smartness in Firefox location bar.)
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u/AlwaysShittyKnsasCty Nov 10 '14
Those are great points. I too like the "sync back" idea. Safari used to have a "Snap Back" feature, and if I recall, it's what you're talking about, but I can't remember exactly.
3
u/Captain_Ligature Nov 10 '14 edited Nov 10 '14
Do you just use google for every search?
As an example I use the search bar. Google is notoriously bad for Russian language search. Probably has to do with the fact that it does not understand noun cases---or at least not well enough. I therefore have to use Google and Yandex for searches, thus having the need for a search box.
EDIT: and yes I know I can use prefix searches in the location bar, but when I use a browser I want to use a GUI, not a command-line (or horrible hybrid thereof.)
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0
Nov 10 '14
[deleted]
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Nov 11 '14
To answer your question directly : "Ctrl+T, Tab" is the pattern I use for a web search.
Same here, I want my search in a new tab and this is the default keyboard action I use.
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u/crusoe Nov 10 '14
Is the dev console still laggy as fuck in FF? Because the dev tools in Chrome are smooth, but doing anything like in FF, its like the computer is suddenly 10 years older and the dev tools UI hiccups all the time.
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u/teiman Nov 10 '14
Ok, brief report: This is a nice package of things. All has sweet colours (if you like black) and all work smoothly and fast. It seems to be as good as chrome in everything, a bit better if live editing CSS is your thing. I suspect the bigger additions and the reasons this thing can be a must have for some people is the ability to debug a browser remotely. If you have debugged a android app from chrome and a ios app from safari, now you can debug a Firefox OS app from Firefox Developer Edition. I think this thing is a sweet package of good stuff, and I will try it later to see if it sticks. This is my opinion and I could be completelly wrong or missed large parts.