
Chrome DevTools: A Glimpse into the Future and RAIL Profiling - rayshan
https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2015/11/devtools-digest-cds-edition
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Mahn
Just opened the dev tools in Canary. Not a big fan of that "mobile-first"
device bar to be honest. As a primarily desktop dev, the previous device mode
worked better for me (enable it when you need it, disable it when you don't).
I hope we can at least make it optional in the final revision.

Everything else looks great though, keep up the good work!

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1wheel
The mobile device bar is particularly annoying while working split screen on
laptop; vertical space is already very tight.

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bigethan
if you move the split from the bottom to the right side, it fits great...
Unless I'm missing something?

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1wheel
I typically have sublime on the other side of the screen and the dev tools
docked to the bottom -
[http://i.imgur.com/JByAoiK.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/JByAoiK.jpg)

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ryanackley
Am I the only one still doing most of my front-end work for Desktop land?
Feeling a little left behind with this announcement.

 _With the changes, we are pushing DevTools into a mobile-first future where
mobile development is the default, and Desktop development is the “add-on”_

~~~
paulbakaus
Author of the linked post here. Definitely wasn't our intention to leave
Desktop behind. A mobile-only world isn't better than a Desktop-only world.
Thus, mobile first. Start with the most common scenario and build your way up
to other platforms.

That being said, I realize that some apps and intranet sites will be Desktop
only by design, and that's fine. We don't want to make your experience worse.
Any feedback on that front is greatly appreciated.

~~~
mattmanser
Is it the most common scenario in development? Seems to me you've got it
backwards. You've confused consumers of websites with numbers of developers.

For example I see far more job adverts for internal tools developers, which
are going to be by and large desktop only, than mobile-first website
developers.

So I'd have thought the number of desktop only web app developers vastly
outnumber the number of mobile-first web developers. I think you're wrong with
the word 'some'. Most is the word you should be looking for.

Don't forget you're emulating a phone without touch. It's useful, but it's
only part of a mobile testing process. So you're making what is a fairly
broken process the 'focus', which seems pretty odd.

Mobile is also feature poor compared to desktop so generally needs less
testing. It's the less intense part of any site because of the form factor.
That's why you're not playing Fallout 4 on your mobile, you've got a little
companion app for it instead.

Finally, for most mobile websites there will be a desktop only admin section.
And it's desktop only because it has huge tables, with lots of sortable
columns. On multiple pages. Common admin interfaces found in any website or
app. So while a desktop site can often exist without a mobile component, it's
rare for a website to exist without a desktop component.

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kristianp
If you want to know what RAIL is without watching a video:
[https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-
devtools/prof...](https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-
devtools/profile/evaluate-performance/rail?hl=en)

~~~
keville
Goodness gracious, you'd think GOOG could have put that link in the video
description.

Thanks.

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steven777400
"Didn’t give up on printing yet?" I appreciate the sentiment, but all of my
customers love printing. Good browser support for print-specific styles allows
me to avoid doing unpleasant things like rendering an SSRS report to PDF and
then printing. At least for LOB apps, printing is going to be around for a
while.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Unfortunately, until the Google team can be bothered to address pretty
critical issues like columns not being printable [1], I have little faith that
they really care about print support at all. For most people, printing is a
thing of the past, and I'm grateful for that, but certain use cases demand it
- a site providing educational resources, for example.

[1]
[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=99358](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=99358)

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bobajeff
I was hoping that 'mobile first' meant that Chrome for Android was finally
getting DevTools.

Instead it means they are going to be tailored for progressive enhancement.
Which I hope leads to more developers embracing that approach over creating
multiple separately maintained versions of the same site.

~~~
zspitzer
You know you can already access Chrome for Android with DevTools via
chrome://inspect/#devices ? Note: You may need to run adb devices to get your
device to show up

There is also the rather wonderful WebIDE in Firefox which lets you connect to
a range of iOS and Android browsers via a single interface

~~~
bobajeff
Yes, I already know about the remote debugging tools.

That's not the same as having DevTools available in Chrome for Android.

~~~
HappyTypist
I'd love a web console on my android.

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namuol
A lot of the design tools are nice, but what about _persisting_ the tweaks we
make on the page?

What if we're using a build process (i.e. Sass, ES6 transpilers, etc)?

I've tried using Workspaces in the past, and it was just not a very pleasant
experience. So much potential, though!

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aidos
Not exactly about the DevTools, but, I work with chunky SVGs in Chrome and
that latest version feels completely different. It's always a little like
playing whack-a-mole to juggle performance / user experience when a new
version comes out but this version feels really nice and fast so far. Kudos to
the Chrome team!

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bergie
I wouldn't call it "mobile first" until devtools becomes available in Chrome
browsers on mobile devices

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arikrak
Layout Mode sounds really cool, I wonder if they'll be able to expand that to
more of CSS.

