[Firefox] Ability to open the logger into the browser's sidebar

[gorhill]

Firefox WebExtensions API supports the sidebarAction API, which purpose is to open "a pane that is displayed at the left-hand side of the browser window, next to the web page."

I want to investigate whether using the sidebar API to host uBO's logger is practical. I can confirm it is feasible, by simply adding the following entry to uBO's manifest file:

"sidebar_action": {
   "default_icon": {
      "19":"img/browsericons/icon19.png",
      "38":"img/browsericons/icon38.png"
   },
   "default_title" : "uBlock Origin logger",
   "default_panel": "logger-ui.html"
},

Result:

Issues to investigate/solve:

• The drop-down list at the top of the logger does not work, for unknown reasons.
• There can be only one logger document opened at any given time, so these approaches must be mutually exclusive:
  • Logger in a separate tab
  • Logger as a popup window
  • Logger in the sidebar
    • Complication: there can be only one logger, so need to deal with the case of many windows with sidebar opened.
• Verify that this also work on Opera, which also supports the sidebar API
  • Using the browser's sidebar is practical only if the maximum width allowed is sufficient

[heubergen]

I'm not intend to disturb you but the drop-down seems to work for me with Firefox Nightly. I can select a site and the logger also only shows the requests from the selected site.

[gorhill]

Looks like you are on MacOS? Could be a Linux-specific issue.

[heubergen]

Yes, I'm using MacOS. Maybe someone with Windows OS can confirm the issue?

[luxoflux]

Just some ideas:

• Left-click on the logger icon would behave as normal
• Right-click opens in the sidebar
• Middle-click opens in a new window

And the tooltip could list these options.

[gorhill]

Drop list issue in sidebar: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1190679#c11.

[sn260591]

How about devtools panel? This can also be implemented in Chrome.

[elypter]

it would be cool to have this for vivaldi too.

[gorhill]

How about devtools panel?

uBO's logger is unified. A dev tool panel is meant to provide tools for the current page only. For instance, had the logger not been unified and implemented as a dev panel, it would be next to impossible to witness Instart Logic at work -- uBO's logger is out of reach of such ploy used by Instart Logic.

[gorhill]

This will need to be fixed for Opera too, it supports side bars.