We should show the node highlight all the time when hovering in the DOM tree.
Created attachment 23919 [details] Proposed patch
Didn't we intentionally revert this behavior a while back?
Yes, but that was when we scrolled to reveal the node. Now that we don't do this, the highlight is not annoying to use and better matches Firebug. Our current behavior is confusing developers too. <rdar://problem/6118902>
Also this patch requires hovering a node for 500ms before the highlight shows. (The previous attempt highlighted the instant you hovered.) This new behavior makes it less twitchy and behaves like a tooltip (hover to get it, then hover to the next element hows the highlight faster). Plus the feedback about the previous implementation said there was no feedback in the inspector. We now have a hover effect in the inspector too so you see the row for the node you are over. So there is a tie between the two.
Comment on attachment 23919 [details] Proposed patch change "sooner if there if one is already showing" to "sooner if there is one already showing" could move the setting of element on line 180 to 195 in ElementsTreeOutline.prototype
Landed in r37079.