Bug 42732 – Web Inspector: In inspect mode mouse movement over the page should change node selection in Elements panel interactively

• Status: RESOLVED
• Resolution: INVALID
• Component: Web Inspector (Deprecated)

Desired behavior: After Inspect element button is pressed in Debugger, you can move your mouse over the web page and interactively see its reflection in Elements panel. To see each node selection in Elements panel you don’t need to click on selected element on the page.

Currently after you click Inspect button and select element on the page, you have to click on the element to see it in Elements panel. Besides, it worked as desired in Firebug.

I suppose this feature would allow to perform some actions not looking at Elements panel. For example, in inspect mode you could move your mouse over the page and delete various nodes pressing keyboard button Delete numerous times (fast and convenient for users who want to get rid of some parts of the page).

[Pavel Feldman]

> I suppose this feature would allow to perform some actions not looking at Elements panel. For example, in inspect mode you could move your mouse over the page and delete various nodes pressing keyboard button Delete numerous times (fast and convenient for users who want to get rid of some parts of the page).

It is not how it works in Firebug - focus is not brought to the DOM tree unless element is clicked. Not sure we should allow this as well. Rest of the request sounds like something we might want.

It will produce significant overhead and traffic increase that we might want to assess prior to doing it.

> It is not how it works in Firebug - focus is not brought to the DOM tree unless element is clicked. 

In Firebug 1.5.4 it works for me: I don't need to click on element to get the DOM focus in Elements panel.

[Pavel Feldman]

(In reply to comment #2)
> > It is not how it works in Firebug - focus is not brought to the DOM tree unless element is clicked. 
> 
> In Firebug 1.5.4 it works for me: I don't need to click on element to get the DOM focus in Elements panel.

I am on 1.6, focus is not there. Focus is where keyboard input is going to. Are you saying Up, Down, Delete are working for you without clicking on element?

>  Are you saying Up, Down, Delete are working for you without clicking on element?

Exactly (for Firebug). But I have just noticed (probably it's bug) that sometimes it doesn't work from the beginning (at least in 1.5.4). 
If so, then:
 - in inspect mode click on some element on the page (inspect mode is off after this); 
 - activate inspect mode again. 
In result, it will work as expected.
If you can't reproduce this, I will attach the video.

[Brian Burg]

Closing as invalid, as this bug pertains to the old inspector UI and/or its tests.
Please file a new bug (https://www.webkit.org/new-inspector-bug) if the bug/feature/issue is still relevant to WebKit trunk.