
Parasite – Firebug for GTK+ Applications - lelf
http://chipx86.github.io/gtkparasite/
======
chipx86
Hah, well, wouldn't have expected to see this on Hacker News all these years
later.

This got folded up into GTK+ years back as the GTK Inspector, so we dropped
further development on it. They could do more with this being part of GTK+
than we could as a loadable module.

I also don't really work on GTK-based applications anymore, so it didn't make
sense to continue development when I no longer had a vested interest in
building new features for it. Instead, I build Review Board
([https://www.reviewboard.org](https://www.reviewboard.org) \-- code review
product) full-time now. Takes about 156% of my time.

The little Parasite bug lives on, though, as the mascot for Splat, a bug
tracker we maintain for our needs (and might turn into a product someday). See
[https://hellosplat.com/tour/](https://hellosplat.com/tour/) for more drawings
of the little guy.

~~~
KwanEsq
Ah, reviewboard, I remember using that back when Mozilla used it. I quite
liked it, was good for interdiffs.

Which reminds me, I filed a security bug years ago against it (using the
mentioned Splat), and no one seems to have ever noticed/looked at it. #4614 if
you're interested

~~~
chipx86
Ah yes, I remember this. We did see it and looked into it at the time (and
I've just gone over it again). It's really a different problem than it seems.
Not a security issue, but I can see where it'd look like it. Kind of a
terrible quirk with the unreliability of diffs.

We discussed it internally, but those discussions never moved to the bug. I'll
follow up on there, give you an overview of why you saw the behavior you did
and our rationale.

Thanks for the poke!

------
Vogtinator
The equivalent for Qt (but much more powerful) is GammaRay
([https://www.kdab.com/development-resources/qt-
tools/gammaray...](https://www.kdab.com/development-resources/qt-
tools/gammaray/))

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jononor
The website could maybe mention and link to GTK Inspector? That is the
recommended alternative/replacement to this for some years now.

I used gtkparasite almost 10 years ago when I was learning GTK+, was quite
useful :)

~~~
chipx86
I'm very glad to hear that :)

Took your suggestion and updated the webpage!

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wazari972
Last commit on master: Dec 30, 2013. Maybe a [2013] tag could be added in the
title!

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war1025
I remember feeling excited about this when it came out. But if you look at the
github, it hasn't seen any updates for six years.

~~~
awalton
It's built into GTK+ now as GtkInspector:
[https://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2014/05/15/introducing-
gtkin...](https://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2014/05/15/introducing-
gtkinspector/)

------
_def
The mascot is really adorable :D

~~~
chipx86
Thanks!

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suhail
Does this work on Google Chrome?

~~~
LordDragonfang
Google Chrome already has integrated developer tools inspired by Firebug, and
has for years.

~~~
aarpmcgee
My guess is parent was asking if Parasite/gtk inspector can be used on the
chrome application itself.

