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Issue 677842 link

Starred by 2 users

Issue metadata

Status: Archived
Owner:
Closed: Nov 2017
Cc:
Components:
EstimatedDays: ----
NextAction: ----
OS: Linux , Windows , Mac
Pri: 2
Type: Feature



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DevTools: switch to DevTools without altering page state, simulate 2nd mouse

Reported by crmal...@gmail.com, Jan 2 2017

Issue description

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/56.0.2924.10 Safari/537.36 OPR/43.0.2442.7 (Edition beta)

Steps to reproduce the problem:
Sometimes I find myself wishing I had a 2nd mouse cursor when juggling between the web page, and the dev tools. For example, I might want to interact with the dev tool pane, but I need to first use my mouse to cause something to happen in the web page (eg, trigger a hover or mouse event), but I can't be in 2 places at the same time. 

I'm aware of some tricks to help with this: 
-The ability to force an element into the :hover state via the devtools. This works, but often I need to trigger javascript which listens to mouse events, and so the :hover state doesn't always help in that case.
-Pause javascript execution while my mouse is where I want in the webpage via f8, then while it's paused, move my mouse into the devtool pane, then unpause js and interact with the dev tools. This somewhat works in certain scenarios, but it seems the effect doesn't always last long (I'm not sure why, but it's as if it eventually realizes my mouse has moved from the position it was at when I paused).

What is the expected behavior?
I would love a dedicated feature that lets me have a 2nd mouse - 1 locked in the webpage region/pane, and another locked in the devtool pane. This would make it easy to keep your mouse positioned where you need it in the web page, while debugging in the devtools. Maybe you could switch between the 2 pointers via a hotkey.

I think this should be a mode that is only occasionally enabled, since generally you want your mouse to be able to be used across both regions.

What went wrong?
n/a

Did this work before? N/A 

Chrome version: 56.0.2924.10  Channel: n/a
OS Version: 10.0
Flash Version: Shockwave Flash 24.0 r0

Thanks for your consideration. You've done a great job on chrome devtools so far!
 

Comment 1 by ajha@chromium.org, Jan 3 2017

Labels: -Type-Bug M-57 OS-Linux OS-Mac Type-Feature
Status: Untriaged (was: Unconfirmed)
Looks to be a Feature request,hence marking this as Untriaged and for more inputs on this from the respective team.


Comment 2 by allada@chromium.org, Jan 10 2017

Owner: l...@chromium.org

Comment 3 by l...@chromium.org, Jan 10 2017

Cc: chowse@chromium.org
Status: Assigned (was: Untriaged)
Summary: DevTools: switch to DevTools without altering page state, simulate 2nd mouse (was: simulate 2nd mouse with quick switching between them in devtools)
Thanks for the feature request, feedback is always welcome!

I did a quick search on StackOverflow and found similar questions:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17602611/inspect-a-hover-element
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17931571/freeze-screen-in-chrome-debugger-devtools-panel-for-popover-inspection

The tricks you mentioned address the core issue, but there might be an easier, more discoverable way of switching focus back to DevTools without altering page state.  I'm not sure what UI to control 2 cursors would look like, but this is one option to explore.  A timer button that pauses after N seconds could be another.

If the F8 solution covers the cases, perhaps we could do a better at letting users know about it.

Regarding your comment about how using F8 to pause the target page "doesn't always last long", could you please elaborate?  This might be a bug, and a reproducible scenario could help us fix the issue.

Comment 4 by l...@chromium.org, Nov 16 2017

Status: Archived (was: Assigned)
I don't see any feasible solution at the moment.  The 2nd mouse is an interesting idea, but the feature would be pretty complex for this use case.  Archiving this bug for now, but we'll still be thinking of better ways to trigger states on the page and pause on breakpoints more easily.

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