Reason number 12,783 why I love FireFox

Posted At : August 3, 2006 12:07 PM | Posted By : Scott Stroz
Related Categories: FireFox Stuff,Tech Stuff

I love FireFox.  I have loved it since I first laid eyes on its beautiful tabbed browsing back when version 1 was still in beta.  Since then, I have found many more reasons to love it.  I happened on another one, by mistake, yesterday.

I was troubleshooting an application, and needed to modify some JavaScript.  To make sure the changes I made were actually doing what I wanted, I needed to refresh the page, then view the source, a real pain in the ass. 

During one round of 'change code -> save ->go to browser -> refresh page -> view source', I alt+tabbed to the wrong window, and instead of looking at the page in FireFox, I was looking at the 'View Source' window.  Since I had gotten into a rhythm, I had hit F5, before I realized I was in the wrong window.  To my surprise, the code in the 'View Source' window refreshed, and showed me the result of the updated code.

I am in awe.  I no longer need to keep opening 'View Source' window after 'View Source' window when changes I make to my code are not viewable in a regular browser window. I love when FireFox makes my job easier.

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Dan G. Switzer, II's Gravatar Ironically, this is one of the things I frustrating about Firefox/Mozilla. It's a carry over from the old Netscape days.

Whenever you go to the "View Source" Firefox/Mozilla re-dowloads the file from the web server--it's not showing you the "cached" copy of the code (which is what I wished it would do.)

This has caused me problems from time-to-time on pages were content changes per page load, as the source doesn't always match the what was rendered.

What I'd love to see is that the source code is pulled from cache first and then you could force a reload of both the source and the main page at the same time.
# Posted By Dan G. Switzer, II | 8/3/06 5:19 PM
Scott Stroz's Gravatar Dan,

I have yet to run into an issue like that. I can definitely see how this could cause a wealth of frustration, especially if someone is unaware of what FireFox does when you view the source.
# Posted By Scott Stroz | 8/3/06 9:35 PM
Raymond Camden's Gravatar Mega +1 to Dan. I love FF, but _despise_ this feature. View Source should come from what is on the screen. Not the server. Not even cache (because no-cache could be turned on). How damn hard is it to just show me the current source. It is almost as if the developers have never heard of pages with dynamic content. I keep waiting for them to fix this, and I keep getting surprised by it.
# Posted By Raymond Camden | 8/4/06 2:21 PM
Tom Chiverton's Gravatar I'm fairly sure the web developer extension fixes this.
# Posted By Tom Chiverton | 8/31/06 6:38 AM
Raymond Camden's Gravatar I don't think it fixes it. I think it provides an alternative (View Selection Source).
# Posted By Raymond Camden | 8/31/06 6:59 AM
Raymond Camden's Gravatar This is all fine and good - but come on. I mean seriously - Firefox can't show you the dang source w/o an extension? I love Firefox, but this is one of the most dumb bugs I've seen in my life.
# Posted By Raymond Camden | 8/31/06 7:19 AM
Sebastian Val's Gravatar Just as an aside, even though you shouldn't need an extension, thats the way it goes sometimes with FOSS. The advantage you have here, is that if the software LACKS a feature (such as viewing rendered source) your free to add it. I know this doesn't do much for the non-developers out there, but at least the option is there. Since other people mentioned the source charting extension, I'd like to mention that firebug is much better allowing you not only to see the current HTML,CSS,JS and DOM but to manipulate it on the fly. http://www.getfirebug.com
# Posted By Sebastian Val | 1/24/08 9:29 AM
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