I can't stand firebug, the UI is a complete turn off for me. The Chrome dev tools (any any webkit for that matter) just look and function better for what I spend 99% of my time in dev tools doing, tweaking CSS.
- inspecting ajax responses in console without flipping to net panel, then hunting for the correct request.
- keeping an inspected/selected html element highlighted on page, not just on mouseover so you can see element bounds. this is useful for tweaking sizing, padding, margins and position.
- as-i-type updating of html rather than on blur
- live highlighting html as it changes
- multiline console
- can't arrange the console tab to be first or arrange the tabs in my most frequently used order. to be fair, FB doesnt offer this either, but I like the console to be first since i spend 90% of my time there in FB, probably cause it's much more useful than chrome's.
there's more that dont immediately come to mind, but not having the first 2 is a major nuisance and productivity killer.
Shift-enter in the Chrome console creates a newline rather than executing.
> live highlighting html as it changes
In the Rendering tab (bottom panel) there's a toggle for "Show paint rectangles" which sounds like its close (but not quite the same) as what you're looking for.
> Shift-enter in the Chrome console creates a newline rather than executing.
this is not only a major pain in the ass, but also much much worse than just having a persistent multiline editor window that keeps your code, cursor position and selection intact between executions.
it's not at all useful. all you get is some stack-tace-like thing without any of what you actually want to see. like req/resp headers and body, params, inline json/html decoding based on response type. chrome lags here by a large margin.
2. Click on the request that was just highlighted for you in the Net panel
3. See headers right away, or click Response to see raw response or Preview to see those rendered nicely
4. Click console again to return
and then...
5. Oh wait, want to see something in the headers
6. Go to the Net panel, still there for you
It's a different workflow and it's probably annoying to you since you're not used to it, but "it's not at all useful" is edging past hyperbolic. Personally I feel like a clumsy idiot when I go back to Firebug, even though I used to live in it and once knew every quirk. I think that's just the way of developer tools.
I rarely need the console tab in the chrome devtools because hitting Esc is normally way faster. Also having the tabs in a defined order allows you to use Cmd+n to switch between them (and the number stays the same).
I think the chrome devs did a good job of incorporating the best firebug features. The things that I find better in Firebug are mostly add-ons. For example I work with xpath a lot so firepath work awesome and ties into firebug seamlessly. I haven't found a tool that works as well on chrome.
I also wonder why Mozilla didn't attempt to acquire firebug instead of building their own tools from scratch?
I believe Mozilla does manage Firebug, but the reason it isn't integrated as the main set of tools has to do with Firebug being much slower on complex pages?
Chrome adamantly refuses to un-enable responsive useragent stuff. I constantly have to turn off the extra half-window. More evidence that Google has little product sense.
I agree, while Chrome DevTools are superior in many ways, it's become a shambles as they shoehorn features wherever they fit (like that console half-window)
