The Chrome DevTools offer a powerful set of tools for web development. If you’re looking to enhance your productivity and efficiency, here are some lesser-known tips and tricks to try:

  1. Drag and Drop in the Elements panel: Easily change the position of HTML elements across your page by dragging and dropping them within the Elements panel.

  2. Reference the currently selected element in the Console: Select a node in the Elements panel and type $0 in the console to reference it. This can be particularly useful when working with jQuery, as you can enter $($0) to access the jQuery API for that element.

  3. Use the value of the last operation in the Console: To reference the return value of the previous operation executed in the Console, use $_.

  4. Add CSS and edit the element state: Take advantage of two useful buttons in the Elements panel. The first button allows you to add a new CSS property to the currently selected element. The second button lets you trigger different states for the selected element, such as active, hover, and focus, to visualize the applied styles.

  5. Find where a CSS property is defined: By cmd-clicking (or ctrl-clicking in Windows) a CSS property in the Elements panel, you can quickly locate where it is defined in the Source panel.

  6. Save modified CSS to file: If you’ve made modifications to a CSS file, you can save it with the live edits you applied by clicking on the file name in the inspector and using the Sources pane.

  7. Screenshot a single element: To capture a screenshot of a specific element, select it and press cmd-shift-p (or ctrl-shift-p in Windows) to open the Command Menu. Then, choose Capture node screenshot.

  8. Find an element using CSS selectors: Use cmd-f (ctrl-f in Windows) to open the search box in the Elements panel. You can enter a string to search for in the source code or use CSS selectors to generate an image of matching elements.

  9. Shift-enter in the Console: Press shift-enter to write commands that span multiple lines in the Console. When you’re ready, press enter to execute the script.

  10. Clear the Console: To clear the Console, either click on the Clear button on the top-left of the console or use the shortcut ctrl-l or cmd-k.

  11. Go to…: In the Sources panel, use cmd-o (ctrl-o in Windows) to show all the files loaded by your page. Alternatively, use cmd-shift-o (ctrl-shift-o in Windows) to show symbols (properties, functions, classes) in the current file. To go to a specific line, use ctrl-g.

  12. Watch Expression: Instead of repeatedly typing a variable name or expression during a debug session, add it to the Watch Expression list for easy monitoring.

  13. XHR/Fetch debugging: From the debugger, open the XHR/Fetch Breakpoints panel to set breakpoints for XHR or Fetch calls. You can choose to break on any call or specific ones.

  14. Debug on DOM modifications: Enable Break on Subtree Modifications by right-clicking an element. This causes the debugger to stop automatically when a script modifies the children of that element, allowing for easy inspection.

By applying these tips and tricks, you can enhance your workflow and optimize your usage of Chrome DevTools.

Tags: web development, Chrome DevTools, productivity, efficiency