Firefox 15 has hit the Mozilla pre-beta Aurora channel, and it features a redesigned, built-in debugger.
Mozilla has released Firefox 15 to
its pre-beta
Aurora
channel and the new release comes with some major new features and
improvements to the built-in tools for Web developers.
Perhaps the biggest change in
Firefox 15 is that it ships with a debugger that developers can use to find
issues with their JavaScript code. The debugger is available via the Web
Developer menu.
In a
blog post, Kevin Dangoor, product manager for
developer tools at Mozilla, said the Firefox debugging interface has been
redesigned for Firefox 15. Dangoor wrote:
This new debugger is not just a new
user interface over the functionality that Firefoxs JavaScript engine
(SpiderMonkey) has been providing to tools like Firebug for years. The entire debugging interface
in SpiderMonkey has been completely redesigned. There are two big
things that Web developers get because of the new debugger back-end:
1. Its fast! JavaScript applications running with the debugger open will
run nearly as fast as they do without the debugger.
2. Its remotable! You can connect the debugger user interface to a debugger back-end
running somewhere else.
The second point above is exciting,
because it means that youll be able to debug JavaScript that is running in
Firefox for Android or
Firefox OS,
all from the comfort of Firefox on your desktop or laptop computer.
Other new features in Firefox 15
include a new Responsive Design View that makes it easy to resize just the page
the developer is viewing. With the Responsive Design View, you can work on
your designs without constantly pulling out your mobile phone to see how it
looks, Dangoor said.
And, you can try out your designs without
shrinking your browsers tools, toolbars and other tabs.
Firefox 15 also features a new
Layout View that enables developers to see how the margins, padding and border
are set for a node in one view. The Layout View is collapsed to a single line
showing the developer the size of the element. It is available as part of the
Style Inspector. Meanwhile, enhancements to the Page Inspector enable
developers to turn off highlighting behavior.
In addition, Mozilla has given the Firefox
15
Web Console a major boost in performance, Dangoor
said. The Web Console is like a heads-up display for the Web, enabling
developers to view error messages and other logged information. In addition,
there are methods developers can call to output information to the console,
making it a useful debugging aid, and developers can evaluate JavaScript on the
fly, Mozilla said.
The Firefox Aurora channel is where
users and developers can go to preview features of what is in store for
upcoming versions of the Firefox browser. Users and developers can share their
experiences with the pre-beta software and help shape the final product.
Mozilla announced on June 5 the availability of
Firefox 13, the latest version of its desktop
browser for Windows, Mac and Linux. And on July 7, Mozilla released the latest
beta of Firefox 14. According to Mozillas rapid release cadence, new releases
are planned for every six weeks. Firefox 14 is expected to be generally
available in mid-July.
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