Firefox 65 release notes for developers
This article provides information about the changes in Firefox 65 that will affect developers. Firefox 65 was released on January 29, 2019.
Changes for web developers
>Developer tools
- The Flexbox inspector is now enabled by default.
- Support has been added to the JavaScript Debugger for XHR Breakpoints (Firefox bug 821610).
- Right-click on an item in the accessibility tree from the Accessibility viewer to print it as JSON to the JSON viewer.
- The color contrast display of the Accessibility Picker has been updated so that if a text's background is complex (e.g., a gradient or complex image), it shows a range of color contrast values.
- The Headers tab of the Network Monitor now displays the Referrer Policy for the selected request (Firefox bug 1496742).
- When displaying stack traces (e.g., in console logs or the JavaScript debugger), calls to framework methods are identified and collapsed by default, making it easier to home in on your code.
- In the same fashion as native terminals, you can now use reverse search to find entries in your JavaScript console history (
F9on Windows/Linux orCtrl+Ron macOS, then type a search term, followed byCtrl+R/Ctrl+Sto toggle through results). - The JavaScript console's
$0shortcut (references the currently inspected element on the page) now has autocomplete available, so for example you could type$0.teto get autocomplete suggestions for properties like$0.textContent. - The edits you make in the Rules view of the Inspector are now listed in the Changes panel (Firefox bug 1503920).
HTML
- Events are now dispatched on disabled HTML elements, i.e.,
<button>,<fieldset>,<input>,<select>, and<textarea>elements withdisabledattributes set on them (Firefox bug 329509). - Removing the
srcattribute of an<iframe>element now causesabout:blankto be loaded into it, giving it parity with Chrome and Safari (Firefox bug 1507842). Previously removingsrchad no effect on theiframecontent. - We have added support for the
referrerpolicyattribute on<script>elements (Firefox bug 1460920).
CSS
-
The
image-renderingproperty'scrisp-edgesvalue has now been unprefixed (Firefox bug 1496617). -
A
scrollbar-colorvalue ofautonow resolves toauto, rather than two colors (Firefox bug 1501418). -
The
break-*properties have been implemented, and the legacypage-break-*properties have been aliased to them (Firefox bug 775618):break-beforeis now an alias forpage-break-before.break-afteris now an alias forpage-break-after.break-insideis now an alias forpage-break-inside.
-
The
overflow-wrapproperty'sanywherevalue has been implemented (Firefox bug 1505786). -
The new step position keywords
jump-start,jump-end,jump-none, andjump-both— usable inside thesteps()timing function — have been implemented (Firefox bug 1496619). This also coincides with the removal of theframes()timing function, which was the previous way of implementing such functionality, now deprecated. -
Some new
-webkit-appearancevalues have been added, for compatibility with other browsers. In particular:meter, which is now used as the default value for<meter>elements in UA stylesheets. The existing valuemeterbaris now an alias formeter(Firefox bug 1501483).progress-bar, which is now used as the default value for<progress>elements in UA stylesheets. The existing valueprogressbaris now an alias forprogress-bar(Firefox bug 1501506).textarea, which is now used as the default value for<textarea>elements in UA stylesheets. The existing valuetextfield-multilineis now an alias fortextarea(Firefox bug 1507905).
-
The behavior of
user-selecthas been changed to make it align more with other browsers (Firefox bug 1506547). Specifically:-
user-select: allset on an element no longer overrides other values ofuser-selectset on children of that element. So for example in the following snippet:html<div style="-webkit-user-select: all"> All <div style="-webkit-user-select: none">None</div> </div>The
<div>withnoneset on it is now non-selectable. Previously this value would have been overridden by theallvalue set on the parent element. -
non-
contenteditableelements nested insidecontenteditableelements are now selectable. -
user-selectnow behaves consistently inside and outside shadow DOM. -
The proprietary
-moz-textvalue has been removed.
-
-
CSS environment variables (the
env()function) have been implemented (Firefox bug 1462233).
Removals
- The
layout.css.shape-outside.enabledpref has been removed;shape-outside,shape-margin, andshape-image-thresholdcan no longer be disabled inabout:config(Firefox bug 1504387). - Several Firefox-only values of the
user-selectproperty have been removed —-moz-all,-moz-text,tri-state,element,elements, andtoggle. See Firefox bug 1492958 and Firefox bug 1506547. - As mentioned above, the
frames()timing function has been removed (Firefox bug 1496619).
SVG
No changes.
JavaScript
Intl.RelativeTimeFormatis now supported (Firefox bug 1504334).- Strings now have a maximum length of
2**30 - 2(~1GB) instead of2**28 - 1(~256MB) (Firefox bug 1509542). - The
globalThisproperty, which always refers to the top-level global object, has been implemented (Firefox bug 1317422).
APIs
New APIs
- Readable Streams have been enabled by default (Firefox bug 1505122).
- The Storage Access API has been enabled by default (Firefox bug 1513021).
DOM
Performance.toJSON()has been exposed to Web Workers (Firefox bug 1504958).XMLHttpRequestrequests will now throw aNetworkErrorif the requested content type is aBlob, and the request method is notGET(Firefox bug 1502599).- The
-moz-prefixed versions of many of the Fullscreen API features have been deprecated, and will now display deprecation warnings in the JavaScript console when encountered (Firefox bug 1504946). Window.createImageBitmap()andWorkerGlobalScope.createImageBitmap()now supports SVG images (SVGImageElement) as an image source (Firefox bug 1500768).
DOM events
- Going forward, only one
Window.open()call is allowed per event (Firefox bug 675574). - The
keyupandkeydownevents are now fired during IME composition, to improve cross-browser compatibility for CJKT users (Firefox bug 354358.
Web workers
SharedWorkerGlobalScope.connect's event object is aMessageEventinstance — itsdataproperty is now an empty string value rather thannull(Firefox bug 1508824).
Fetch and Service workers
- The
Response.redirect()method now correctly throws aTypeErrorif a non-valid URL is specified as the first parameter (Firefox bug 1503276). - The
ServiceWorkerContainer.register()andWorkerGlobalScope.importScripts()(when used by a service worker) methods will now accept any files with a valid JavaScript MIME type (Firefox bug 1354577). - The
FetchEvent.replacesClientIdandFetchEvent.resultingClientIdproperties are now supported (Firefox bug 1264177). - The
ServiceWorkerGlobalScope.onmessageerrorandServiceWorkerContainer.onmessageerrorhandler properties have been implemented (Firefox bug 1399446). - The
Originheader is no longer set on Fetch requests with a method ofHEADorGET(Firefox bug 1508661).
Media, Web Audio, and WebRTC
- The WebRTC
RTCIceCandidateStatsdictionary has been updated according to the latest spec changes (Firefox bug 1324788, Firefox bug 1489040; RTCIceCandidateStats has been updated to the latest spec for more details on exactly what has changed). - The
MediaRecorderpauseandresumeevents (and their corresponding event handler properties were not previously implemented, even though compatibility tables claimed they had been. They have now been implemented (Firefox bug 1458538, Firefox bug 1514016).
Canvas and WebGL
- The WebGL
EXT_texture_compression_bptcandEXT_texture_compression_rgtctexture compression extensions have been exposed to WebGL1 and WebGL2 contexts (Firefox bug 1507263).
Removals
- Mutation events have been disabled in shadow trees (Firefox bug 1489858).
- The non-standard
MediaStreampropertycurrentTimehas been removed (Firefox bug 1502927). - The
dom.webcomponents.shadowdom.enabledanddom.webcomponents.customelements.enabledprefs have been removed — Shadow DOM and Custom Elements can no longer be disabled inabout:config(Firefox bug 1503019). - The non-standard DOM
textevent — fired to notify the browser editor UI of IME composition string data and selection range — has been removed (Firefox bug 1288640). - The
keypressevent is no longer fired for non-printable keys (Firefox bug 968056), except for theEnterkey, and theShift+EnterandCtrl+Enterkey combinations (these were kept for cross-browser compatibility purposes).
Security
- Additional CORS restrictions are now being enforced on allowable request headers (Firefox bug 1483815, see also whatwg fetch issue 382: CORS-safelisted request headers should be restricted according to RFC 7231 for more details).
Networking
No changes.
Plugins
No changes.
WebDriver conformance (Marionette)
API changes
WebDriver:ElementSendKeysnow handles<input type=file>more relaxed for interactability checks, and allows those elements to be hidden without raising anot interactableerror anymore. If a strict interactability check is wanted the capabilitystrictFileInteractabilitycan be used (Firefox bug 1502864).
Bug fixes
- The window manipulation commands
WebDriver:FullscreenWindow,WebDriver:MinimizeWindow,WebDriver:MaximizeWindow, andWebDriver:SetWindowRecthave been made more stable (Firefox bug 1492499). It means that under special conditions they don't cause an infinite hang anymore, but instead timeout after 5s if the requested window state cannot be reached (Firefox bug 1521527). WebDriver:ElementClicknow correctly calculates the center point of the element to click, which allows interactions with dimensions of 1x1 pixels (Firefox bug 1499360).
Others
- For
unexpected alert openerrors more informative messages are provided (Firefox bug 1502268).
Other
-
Support for WebP images has been added (Firefox bug 1294490).
- In addition, to facilitate cross-browser compatibility in certain situations the WebP MIMEType (
image/webp) has been added to the standard HTTP RequestAcceptheader for HTML files (Firefox bug 1507691).
- In addition, to facilitate cross-browser compatibility in certain situations the WebP MIMEType (
-
The AV1 codec is now supported by default on Windows (Firefox bug 1452146).
Changes for add-on developers
>API changes
Tabs
- The tabs API has been enhanced to support tab successors — a tab can have a successor assigned to it, which is the ID of the tab that will be active once it is closed (Firefox bug 1500479, also see this blog post for more information). In particular:
- The
tabs.Tabtype now has asuccessorIdproperty, which can be used to store/retrieve the ID of the tab's successor. - The
tabs.onActivatedevent listener's callback has a new parameter available,previousTabId, which contains the ID of the previous activated tab, if it is still open. - The
tabs.update()function'supdatePropertiesobject has a new optional property available on it,successorTabId, so can be used to update it. successorTabIdis also returned by functions liketabs.get()andtabs.query().- The new function
tabs.moveInSuccession()allows manipulation of tab successors in bulk.
- The
Manifest changes
No changes.
Other
- The
headerURL/theme_frameproperties for WebExtension themes are now supported on Firefox for Android (Firefox bug 1429488).
See also
- Hacks release post: Firefox 65: WebP support, Flexbox Inspector, new tooling & platform updates