I am excited to announce that WebIDE is now enabled by default in Nightly (Firefox 34)! Everyone on the App Tools team has been working hard to polish this new tool that we originally announced back in June.

Features

While the previous App Manager tool was great, that tool’s UX held us back when trying support more complex workflows. With the redesign into WebIDE, we’ve already been able to add:

  • Project Editing
    • Great for getting started without worrying about an external editor
  • Project Templates
    • Easy to focus on content from the start by using a template
  • Improved DevTools Toolbox integration
    • Many UX issues arose from the non-standard way that App Manager used the DevTools
  • Monitor
    • Live memory graphs help diagnose performance issues

Monitor

Transition

All projects you may have created previously in the App Manager are also available in WebIDE.

While the App Manager is now hidden, it’s accessible for now at about:app-manager. We do intend to remove it entirely in the future, so it’s best to start using WebIDE today. If you find any issues, please file bugs!

What’s Next

Looking ahead, we have many more exciting things planned for WebIDE, such as:

  • Command line integration
  • Improved support for app frameworks like Cordova
  • Validation that matches the Firefox Marketplace

If there are features you’d like to see added, file bugs or contact the team via various channels.