Extended Error Console for Pale Moon 27+

[JustOff]

Since Palemoon 27+ has no more embedded Browser Console, here is the replacement for Toolkit Error Console with advanced filtering by error source and type. It is based on Console² extension revived according to modern APIs, patched for speedup (bug #831020), slightly cleaned and optimized.

As of time of this post the latest version can be obtained here, but this may be changed in the future.

[ketmar]

yay, you did updated console squared to Tycho! thank you alot! this is something i was planning to do, but never managed to force myself into it.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

Can you please put icon resources the extension uses into the actual extension.. The UI busts on other themes outside of default.

It would also be helpful if you would not highjack the Toolkit Error Console's menu item.

Also could you possibly populate your git repository with the actual code of your extension?

[JustOff]

Can you please put icon resources the extension uses into the actual extension.. The UI busts on other themes outside of default.

I've just got rid of internal icons to best match default theme under linux/mac. Wouldn't it be better to ask the developers of themes who distorts something to support native Error Console properly? That should also fix any appearance problems in this extension.

It would also be helpful if you would not highjack the Toolkit Error Console's menu item.

Could you please explain why do you think it will be helpful? This extension by design overrides Toolkit Error Console and restores the familiar hotkey to call, so what should we leave in menu?

Also could you possibly populate your git repository with the actual code of your extension?

Ok, I'll do.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

I've just got rid of internal icons to best match default theme under linux/mac. Wouldn't it be better to ask the developers of themes who distorts something to support native Error Console properly? That should also fix any appearance problems in this extension.

It is not the job of themes to support extensions... You should really include your own assets. Do you REALLY want to ask Ryan to update 30+ themes because you decided to ship a broken extension?

If you are concerned about linux and mac.. You can do this conditionally for each os in chrome.manifest.

Could you please explain why do you think it will be helpful? This extension by design overrides Toolkit Error Console and restores the familiar hotkey to call, so what should we leave in menu?

I see.. it overlays and overrides the toolkit console to extend not replace... Let's hope you never need to debug it.

Ok, I'll do.

Thanks!

[JustOff]

It is not the job of themes to support extensions... You should really include your own assets. Do you REALLY want to ask Ryan to update 30+ themes because you decided to ship a broken extension?

Could you please give me at least one example of theme, where plain Toolkit Error Console looks properly, but the extension isn't? I mean, I agree that the theme developers should not of course take care about extensions, but in this particular case if they handle the base browser stuff properly, then all should be fine.

Let's hope you never need to debug it.

I've used Beta1 with devtools enabled for this)

Also could you possibly populate your git repository with the actual code of your extension?

Done.

[JustOff]

It is not the job of themes to support extensions... You should really include your own assets. Do you REALLY want to ask Ryan to update 30+ themes because you decided to ship a broken extension?

Could you please give me at least one example of theme, where plain Toolkit Error Console looks properly, but the extension isn't? I mean, I agree that the theme developers should not of course take care about extensions, but in this particular case if they handle the base browser stuff properly, then all should be fine.

Perhaps the problem was not related to the themes at all: fix toolbar icons for linux & darwin. Updated to 1.0.4.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

Past Modern Revisited.

[JustOff]

Past Modern Revisited.

10x, now I see, but I'm sorry - wontfix.

This theme have no icons for toolbar in Error Console, but my extension allows to customize the toolbar and change the appearance of buttons from icons only (default) to text. But if I'll embed all icons into the addon itself, Error Console will become uncustomizable by other proper themes.

[Moonchild]

It's your extension so ultimately your call, but extensions should be as much self-contained as possible IMHO.
It's nice if you can make an extension adopt browser theme elements, but it should not break (and instead use fallbacks or "generic" elements) if those theme elements happen to not be present.

[JustOff]

it should not break (and instead use fallbacks or "generic" elements) if those theme elements happen to not be present

Sorry, but I don't know how to do such fallback and I'll gladly accept any advice on how to do it. But among the options to disregard all themes or to require a little action to customize toolbar for incomplete themes, I definitely choose the last one.

[ketmar]

I see.. it overlays and overrides the toolkit console to extend not replace... Let's hope you never need to debug it.

ah, it is perfectly debugable with `dump()`. that's how i torn apart original console squared, for example, and rebuilt it into console cubed.

[Moonchild]

But among the options to disregard all themes or to require a little action to customize toolbar for incomplete themes, I definitely choose the last one.

This means your extension will not be compatible with custom themes, ever...

Theme makers won't (and shouldn't have to) create their themes with more than just the default elements in a browser's setup in mind. They can't possibly be expected to create themes with resources for every possible extension that might need them...

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something here, though, so question: the issues with the icons, are those icon resources that are part of the default theme's actively-used icons? Because if so, then yes they would be missing from the theme in question, but that would mean that that theme would also be broken for use without extensions...

[Lootyhoof]

Let's clear some things up here.

This extension works for all themes except Past Modern Revisited, mainly because it doesn't include the relevant icons, since its console buttons use text only.

Adding the relevant images isn't a difficult task, but even then, OP states there is a text mode here too.

No need for casting any more FUD, eh?

[Moonchild]

Totally confused now, then. What exactly is the issue? Is there even an issue?

If Past Modern uses text-only by default in the error console, wouldn't the extension also use text only?

[JustOff]

Yes, it is about the icon resources that are part of the default theme, namely chrome://global/skin/console/console-toolbar.png (btw, it's windows only issue).

Nuance is that toolbar in Toolkit Error Console is configured as "Icon and Text", so even with missed icons it remains usable:

palemoon_2016-11-02_12-36-33.png

palemoon_2016-11-02_12-35-41.png

In the extension toolbar by default is set to "Icons" (there is no space for "Icon and Text" anymore) and if icons are missing it looks "broken":

palemoon_2016-11-02_12-32-35.png

palemoon_2016-11-02_12-34-02.png

Nevertheless, this can easily be remedied by user, since extension's toolbar is customizable, it is sufficient to choose "Text":

palemoon_2016-11-02_12-34-40.png

And everything becomes ok.

[Moonchild]

Thanks for clarifying, JustOff! I clearly misunderstood -- and sorry if it sounded like I was throwing FUD around?

IOW: there's no issue at all, just a quirk when using the extension with that particular theme requiring an extra step, because of the way the theme approaches the error console differently than other themes.

[JustOff]

Moonchild, you definitely don't have to apologize. I by no means claim to be perfect, so it's always better to clarify any doubts, than leave hidden rocks.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

Okay, so who is responsible then. The theme developer or the extension developer. Who's responsibility is it as a matter of course when something like this happens. Because it is not the first time something like this has come up.

I believe extensions should provide their own fall back resources or just not assume things like Icons or l10n strings or any such resources are going to be around. I also should not have to compromise because of a poor design decision on either party's part. How can this be resolved without changing the toolbar mode.

[Moonchild]

Both are at fault -- or neither; depending on whether you want to lay blame or not. There's never a guarantee that any combination of add-ons is going to work out of the box.

In this case, it's a shortcoming of the theme not having icon resources that one would expect to be present (because they are present in the default theme). The theme is incomplete because it doesn't account for people using icon representations. In its defense, that's not how the theme was originally designed -- although it can be argued that if people can change the representation in the theme itself, then the theme should be able to handle icon mode without breaking.

On the other hand, it's also a shortcoming of the extension just assuming it can change the representation of the toolbar regardless of theme, while adopting theme elements. In its defense, the design needs to use a more compact format to work.

So... both are at fault for having a different approach to how the error console layout is designed/supposed to be configured.
Or, neither are at fault because there is no guarantee that every interaction/combination always works.