Developer tools GUI should allow setting language separately from general language setting

[marysmith]

Currently, there is no way to set the language of the developer tools GUI separately from the language of the rest of FF's interface. The developer tools should ideally allow a separate language setting, or at least a toggle to switch to English separately from the rest of the UI.

Why might a user want this? The main reason is that invariably the developer tools messages in English are easier to Google than a user's native language. As a byproduct, this means FF's errors/warnings messages in languages other than English may be unfamiliar to colleagues and require the user to tediously switch locale by going to preferences and then back again just to work on web dev with a colleague.

More generally, in many languages the English version of a technical term is better understood even by those who speak little English than its native-language counterpart. Thus as a matter of preference many folks may just find the English devtools more preferable even though the rest of the interface is more useful in their native language. Giving users the option allows users to use whatever works best for them.

A feature request for this in Bugzilla has languished for quite some time and it would be great to see more attention on this.

(Posted on behalf of u/Lenni009 on reddit—see https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/w0xd17/sunday_rantrage_20220717_your_weekly_complaint/igi0... One among many examples of users who would benefit from this setting)

[Jon]

Thanks for submitting an idea to the Mozilla Connect community! Your idea is now open to votes (aka kudos) and comments.

[Honza]

Thank you for the suggestion!

Yes, I agree with the reasoning. Having an option allowing users to switch DevTools (and only DevTools) to English would truly be helpful

The platform bug you are linking to: Bug 1377737 - Option to switch developer tools GUI to English is the right one to watch for any future progress on this.

This has been on our roadmap on and off for a while and mostly not done because we didn't have the right platform API to implement this feature (which makes it quite complex).

Let me do some research on this and see if the situation improved (I'll post a comment to the platform bug).

Honza

[Twoco]

How to change the language for dev tools only? My OS and browser is set to my main language, but can't develop with this language. xD In my opinion the dev tools should be fixed set to english.

[Twoco]

Please support changing the language in Developer Tools (F12, CTRL+SHIFT+I). I set my OS and browser to my main language (not english), but I cannot develop with that. I need english environment when developing. I would suggest to set the language in dev tools fixed to english, because developers develop and communicate in english. Btw. in Chromium / Chrome, you can already do it. Changing the language in dev tools independently of the browser language. Please support it too.

[Honza]

It isn't currently possible to change the language for DevTools Toolbox only, but we already agreed that this is useful feature for many developers and should be supported. We are now discussing about adding this onto our roadmap. Please follow this bug to stay up to date.