Bug 201039 – Web Inspector: Changes CSS sidebar should not appear for selected Text node

• Component: Web Inspector
• Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE

[Timothy Hatcher]

Created attachment 377010 [details]
Screenshot

See screenshot.

[Devin Rousso]

This was the reason I filed <https://webkit.org/b/194608>.

[Nikita Vasilyev]

I agree!

(In reply to Devin Rousso from comment #1)
> This was the reason I filed <https://webkit.org/b/194608>.

I think we shouldn’t show Changes panel for Text nodes regardless of this setting.

[Timothy Hatcher]

(In reply to Nikita Vasilyev from comment #2)
> I agree!
> 
> (In reply to Devin Rousso from comment #1)
> > This was the reason I filed <https://webkit.org/b/194608>.
> 
> I think we shouldn’t show Changes panel for Text nodes regardless of this
> setting.

I see, the setting fixes it. I agree, no reason to show for text nodes regardless.

[Nikita Vasilyev]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 201669 ***

[Nikita Vasilyev]

(In reply to Devin Rousso from comment #1)
> This was the reason I filed <https://webkit.org/b/194608>.

If that was the reason, can we remove the setting? We no longer show Changes panel for text nodes (regardless of the setting).

[Devin Rousso]

(In reply to Nikita Vasilyev from comment #5)
> (In reply to Devin Rousso from comment #1)
> > This was the reason I filed <https://webkit.org/b/194608>.
> If that was the reason, can we remove the setting? We no longer show Changes panel for text nodes (regardless of the setting).
Sorry, I should've said "this was a reason".  I still far prefer having the Changes panel be per-node.  Frankly, I'd rather us have a Changes "view" in the Resources/Sources Tab (or even having our own Changes Tab).  Having a details sidebar contain non-specific global state is very weird to me and doesn't fit our normal paradigm.

[Timothy Hatcher]

(In reply to Devin Rousso from comment #6)
> (In reply to Nikita Vasilyev from comment #5)
> > (In reply to Devin Rousso from comment #1)
> > > This was the reason I filed <https://webkit.org/b/194608>.
> > If that was the reason, can we remove the setting? We no longer show Changes panel for text nodes (regardless of the setting).
> Sorry, I should've said "this was a reason".  I still far prefer having the
> Changes panel be per-node.  Frankly, I'd rather us have a Changes "view" in
> the Resources/Sources Tab (or even having our own Changes Tab).  Having a
> details sidebar contain non-specific global state is very weird to me and
> doesn't fit our normal paradigm.

+1 to this.

[Joseph Pecoraro]

> > Having a details sidebar contain non-specific global state is very weird to
> > me and doesn't fit our normal paradigm.
> 
> +1 to this.

+1. From me as well. Detail Sidebars provide additional data for something in the main content view. In the Element's tab it should be specific to the selected element.

That said, I'd love to see a link from the Changes sidebar to a general "All Changes" ContentView which shows all Global changes. (Likely some other way to get there as well, but a quick link in the sidebar).

[Nikita Vasilyev]

(In reply to Devin Rousso from comment #6)
> .. Frankly, I'd rather us have a Changes "view" in
> the Resources/Sources Tab (or even having our own Changes Tab).  Having a
> details sidebar contain non-specific global state is very weird to me and
> doesn't fit our normal paradigm.

I agree with you that having a details sidebar contain non-specific global is conceptually inconsistent. However, I'm not sold on the alternatives.

This feature was made specifically for saving CSS changes made in the Styles panel. I added it as a panel to minimize context switching.

Whatever we do, I'd like it to be:
1. Easy to discover after making changes in the Styles panel.
2. Access from Styles panel with one click.

---

In the future, we may have more CSS/layout tools that are global (and not related to the selected DOM node). A few examples from other browsers:

- Chrome DevTools have Animation panel that shows all animations on the page. It's at the bottom drawer (which we don't have). Their Changes view is there as well. It is hard to discover but it's easy to access.

- Firefox DevTools have Fonts view that list all fonts used on the page. It's in the right sidebar of the Elements tab.