safari dev tools like chrome

How to Use React DevTools in Safari

Published on Jun 09, 2023 in platforms by Lucien Chemaly 11 minute read

React is commonly used for the frontend in static site generators like Gatsby and now WordPress . React DevTools is a set of developer tools with a multitude of features that can make your workflow more efficient and help you debug and optimize your code.

However, if you use Safari, you may be disappointed to learn that there is no browser extension for React DevTools like there is in Chrome and Firefox.

Fortunately, there is a solution. You can still use standalone React DevTools to connect to your site in Safari. This practical tool is also useful for debugging non-browser-based React applications, like React Native apps. It can help simplify the process of optimizing and debugging your code, making your workflow more efficient.

In this article, you’ll learn how to install and use the standalone version of React DevTools to debug a React application running in Safari. In addition, the article also highlights the differences between the standalone version and the Chrome extension, as well as some limitations of the tools.

Use Cases for Debugging React Apps

The standalone version of React DevTools is a separate application that provides a powerful set of debugging and inspection tools for React applications. It’s independent of any specific browser and can be used across various platforms and environments. This makes it a versatile option for developers who need to debug their React apps in different contexts.

Some of the use cases for the standalone version of React DevTools include:

• Debugging non-browser-based React apps: The standalone version of React DevTools is particularly useful when debugging React Native applications because it is platform-independent and can connect to apps running on iOS or Android devices. For example, you can use it to determine why a specific component of your React Native app isn’t rendering correctly on an iOS device. You can use React DevTools to inspect the component tree, check component props and state, and identify issues with styling or logic that may be causing the rendering problem.
• Debugging React apps in Safari: Safari is a widely used browser, especially among macOS users. Although Safari has its own set of developer tools, it doesn’t have extensions or support for React applications like Chrome or Firefox. The standalone version of React DevTools can be used to debug React applications running in Safari, as it provides developers with a powerful set of tools to inspect components and diagnose issues. For instance, if a specific UI component in your React app doesn’t behave as expected when viewed in Safari, you can use React DevTools to inspect the component in question. You can check its state and props and identify any issues.
• Debugging server-rendered React apps: In most static site generators, React apps are server-rendered, which means components are rendered on the server side and sent as HTML to the client. In these scenarios, the standalone version of React DevTools can help you debug issues related to server-rendered components. For example, if you’re using a solution like Next.js or React Server Components to perform server-side rendering, you can use the standalone version of React DevTools to inspect the rendered components and identify issues related to data fetching, state management, or rendering logic.

How to Debug a React App in Safari

The following tutorial explains how to use the standalone version of React DevTools to debug a React application running in Safari. By the end, you’ll be equipped with the knowledge and tools you need to confidently debug your React application.

Prerequisites

To complete this tutorial, you’ll need:

• A Mac running Safari
• A code editor, such as Visual Studio Code
• Git installed on your machine
• Node.js and npm (the Node package manager) installed on your system

To verify the installation of Node.js and npm, execute these commands in your shell or terminal:

If they aren’t installed, download and install Node.js , which also automatically installs npm. This tutorial uses Node version 18.12.1 and npm version 8.19.2.

Creating a React Demo Application

You’ll first need to set up a basic React demo application, which you’ll run and debug in your Safari browser using the standalone version of React DevTools.

Create a new React project using Create React App by executing this command:

This command will generate a new folder with the specified name and populate it with boilerplate code for a React application.

Change the current directory to your newly created project folder by running the following command:

Execute the following command to start the development server:

Your React application should now be live at http://localhost:3000/ . Use your Safari browser to open the application:

Any modifications made to the source code will trigger an automatic page refresh.

Connecting Standalone React DevTools to Your App in Safari

To connect React DevTools to your app in Safari, you first need to install the standalone React DevTools package using npm from your terminal or shell:

Run React DevTools with this command:

After you run the command, you’ll get the following screen telling you to add an additional script to your React DOM :

This tutorial uses the script with the localhost link ( <script src="http://localhost:8097"></script> ) to connect the React application, but the LAN IP address also works. Since you’re not working with a mobile application, the localhost link will work just fine.

Go to your source project and open the index.html file in the public folder. Add the localhost link just after the <head> tag, then open React DevTools. You should see the following in the Components section:

Creating a User Listing

Once you have connected React DevTools to your application, you can use the various features it provides. These features include the ability to inspect the component tree, examine component state and props, and profile component performance.

As the sample application doesn’t have many components, you’ll only see the App component in the tree. To explore more features of React DevTools, you’ll need to add more components.

To add a User component, create a file named User.js in the src folder and add the following code to it:

This component displays user information, such as first name, last name, age, and date of birth (DOB).

You’ll now create a UsersList component that utilizes the User component to display the list of users. Create a file named UsersList.js in the src folder and add the following code to it:

To populate the list of users, you need to create some dummy data and wrap the UsersList component in the App component. To do this, replace the code in App.js with the following:

Note: The App component renders the UsersList component, which in turn renders each User component for every user in the list.

The application in your Safari browser should look like the following:

Debugging and Inspecting Your App

Now that your application is ready, you can start debugging it with React DevTools.

If you open React DevTools, you should see your application tree. It begins with the App component at the top, followed by the UsersList component, and ends with the User component:

If you click the UsersList component in the tree, the props that are passed to the component will be displayed in the right pane. In this case, the props include the array of users from your dummy data:

Clicking a User component displays the props that it passes (the user object in this case). You can click any of three User components and check their relative props:

When you use React DevTools to debug your application, it’s important to understand the application tree and how it represents the component hierarchy. The application tree can help you quickly identify rendering issues and data flow by providing a visual representation of the components. You can inspect the props and state of each component to pinpoint bugs and troubleshoot issues that may arise.

Additionally, you can pin the location of a selected component in your browser by clicking the eye icon in React DevTools:

Once this has been activated, it will highlight the component in light blue in your browser:

You can also log the selected component in the console by clicking the bug icon in React DevTools:

The following image shows the results in the browser when you click the bug icon:

Using React DevTools, you can gain a better understanding of the structure and behavior of your applications. You can also more easily identify and fix bugs and performance issues. The standalone version is particularly useful because it can be used with any React application, whether it’s running locally or on a remote server, and it provides a separate, dedicated window for debugging purposes. Overall, the standalone version of React DevTools is a practical tool for developing and debugging React applications.

Differences between Standalone React DevTools and the Chrome Extension

If you use the standalone version of React DevTools, you’ll be able to use it with any browser, not just Safari. It also offers more customization options and flexibility compared to the Chrome extension. The following are some other differences between the two versions:

• Cross-platform compatibility: The standalone version of React DevTools is designed to work across various platforms, including browsers and devices, enabling a broader range of debugging and development possibilities. Chrome extensions, on the other hand, are limited to working within the Chrome browser environment.
• Ease of setup and connection: Chrome extensions are designed to integrate seamlessly with the browser, so using the extension version makes it easy to detect and connect to React apps running in the browser. The standalone version of React DevTools often requires manual configuration to connect to the target app, which can be more time-consuming and error-prone.
• Updates and maintenance: These two versions of React DevTools may have different release schedules and update processes. Chrome extensions typically update automatically with the browser, while the standalone version may require manual updates.

Limitations of Standalone React DevTools

It’s also important to be aware that the standalone version of React DevTools has some limitations. For instance, the tool may not work as effectively with certain types of components, such as those built with third-party libraries. You may need to use additional tools or methods to gather the necessary information if the tool provides limited data.

The following are some of the most notable limitations:

• Browser-specific features: The standalone version of React DevTools may lack some browser-specific features, such as network request inspection, JavaScript debugging, or browser performance profiling. For these features, developers need to use the browser’s built-in developer tools or rely on other debugging solutions tailored for the specific browser.
• Integration with browser environment: The standalone version doesn’t have the same level of integration with the browser environment as the extensions. Certain tasks, like interacting with browser APIs or manipulating the DOM, may be more challenging or impossible to accomplish using the standalone version.
• Learning curve: Due to differences in features, interface, and setup process, developers may need to invest additional time in learning how to use the standalone version of React DevTools. This may slow down their development process, especially if they are already familiar with the Chrome extension.
• Performance and resource usage: The standalone version of React DevTools may have different performance characteristics and resource usage compared to the Chrome extension version. Depending on the specific tools and configurations used, developers may experience varying levels of performance and resource consumption, which can impact their development experience.

By keeping these limitations in mind, you can adjust your approach and optimize your code more effectively. For instance, you can use alternative tools or workarounds to gather the information you need.

The standalone version of React DevTools offers a versatile solution for developers who need a powerful and flexible set of debugging tools, whether they’re working on browser-based React apps or non-browser-based applications like React Native apps.

This article introduced the standalone version of React DevTools and demonstrated how to use it to debug a React app running in Safari. You should now be comfortable with setting up, connecting, and using React DevTools to inspect and debug your React applications. With the knowledge from this article, you’ll be able to debug your React applications, regardless of the environment or browser they are running in.

You can find the code that was used in this article in this GitHub repository .

By Lucien Chemaly

Lucien has a Master's and Engineering Degree in IT and Telecommunications from the University of Rennes, France. He teaches seasonal courses for engineering students at the Saint Joseph University of Beirut and has been involved in programming training for private companies. He also writes for Draft.dev.

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What’s New With DevTools: Cross-Browser Edition

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Browser developer tools keep evolving, with new and improved features added all the time. It’s hard to keep track, especially when using more than one browser. With that much on offer, it is not surprising that we feel overwhelmed and use the features we already know instead of keeping up with what’s new.

It’s a shame though, as some of them can make us much more productive.

So, my goal with this article is to raise awareness on some of the newest features in Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Firefox and Safari. Hopefully, it will make you want to try them out, and maybe will help you get more comfortable next time you need to debug a browser-specific issue.

With that said, let’s jump right in.

Chrome DevTools

The Chrome DevTools team has been hard at work modernizing their (now 13 years old) codebase. They have been busy improving the build system, migrating to TypeScript, introducing new WebComponents, re-building their theme infrastructure, and way more. As a result, the tools are now easier to extend and change.

But on top of this less user-facing work, the team did ship a lot of features too. Let me go over a few of them here, related to CSS debugging.

Scroll-snapping

CSS scroll-snapping offers web developers a way to control the position at which a scrollable container stops scrolling. It’s a useful feature for, e.g., long lists of photos where you want the browser to position each photo neatly within its scrollable container automatically for you.

If you want to learn more about scroll-snapping, you can read this MDN documentation , and take a look at Adam Argyle’s demos here .

The key properties of scroll-snapping are:

• scroll-snap-type , which tells the browser the direction in which snapping happens, and how it happens;
• scroll-snap-align , which tells the browser where to snap.

Chrome DevTools introduced new features that help debug these key properties:

• if an element defines scroll-snapping by using scroll-snap-type , the Elements panel shows a badge next to it.
• the scroll container,
• the items that scroll within the container,
• the position where items are aligned (marked by a blue dot).

This overlay makes it easy to understand if and how things snap into place after scrolling around. This can be very useful when, e.g., your items don’t have a background and boundaries between them are hard to see.

While scroll snapping isn’t a new CSS feature, adoption is rather low ( less than 4% according to chromestatus.com ), and since the specification changed, not every browser supports it the same way.

I hope that this DevTools feature will make people want to play more with it and ultimately adopt it for their sites.

Container queries

If you have done any kind of web development in recent years, you have probably heard of container queries . It’s been one of the most requested CSS features for the longest time and has been a very complex problem for browser makers and spec writers to solve.

If you don’t know what container queries are, I would suggest going through Stephanie Eckles’ Primer On CSS Container Queries article first.

In a few words, they’re a way for developers to define the layout and style of elements depending on their container’s size. This ability is a huge advantage when creating reusable components since we can make them adapt to the place they are used in (rather than only adapt to the viewport size which media queries are good for).

Fortunately, things are moving in this space and Chromium now supports container queries and the Chrome DevTools team has started adding tooling that makes it easier to get started with them.

Container queries are not enabled by default in Chromium yet (to enable them, go to chrome://flags and search for “container queries”), and it may still take a little while for them to be. Furthermore, the DevTools work to debug them is still in its early days. But some early features have already landed.

• When selecting an element in DevTools that has styles coming from a @container at-rule, then this rule appears in the Styles sidebar of the Elements panel. This is similar to how media queries styles are presented in DevTools and will make it straightforward to know where a certain style is coming from.

As the above screenshot shows, the Styles sidebar displays 2 rules that apply to the current element. The bottom one applies to the .media element at all times and provides its default style. And the top one is nested in a @container (max-width:300px) container query that only takes effect when the container is narrower than 300px.

• On top of this, just above the @container at-rule, the Styles pane displays a link to the element that the rule resolves to, and hovering over it displays extra information about its size. This way you know exactly why the container query matched.

The Chrome DevTools team is actively working on this feature and you can expect much more in the future.

Chromium Collaboration

Before going into features that other browsers have, let’s talk about Chromium for a little bit. Chromium is an open-source project that Chrome, Edge, Brave, and other browsers are built upon. It means all these browsers have access to the features of Chromium.

Two of the most active contributors to this project are Google and Microsoft and, when it comes to DevTools, they collaborated on a few interesting features that I’d like to go over now.

CSS Layout Debugging Tools

A few years ago, Firefox innovated in this space and shipped the first-ever grid and flexbox inspectors. Chromium-based browsers now also make it possible for web developers to debug grid and flexbox easily.

This collaborative project involved engineers, product managers and designers from Microsoft and Google, working towards a shared goal (learn more about the project itself in my BlinkOn talk ).

Among other things, DevTools now has the following layout debugging features:

• Highlight multiple grid and flex layouts on the page, and customize if you want to see grid line names or numbers, grid areas, and so on.
• Flex and grid editors to visually play around with the various properties.
• Alignment icons in the CSS autocomplete make it easier to choose properties and values.
• Highlight on property hover to understand what parts of the page a property applies to.

You can read more information about this on Microsoft’s and Google’s documentation sites.

Localization

This was another collaborative project involving Microsoft and Google which, now, makes it possible for all Chromium-based DevTools to be translated in languages other than English.

Originally, there was never a plan to localize DevTools, which means that this was a huge effort. It involved going over the entire codebase and making UI strings localizable.

The result was worth it though. If English isn’t your first language and you’d feel more comfortable using DevTools in a different one, head over to the Settings ( F1 ) and find the language drop-down.

Here is a screenshot of what it looks like in Chrome DevTools:

And here is how Edge looks in Japanese:

Edge DevTools

Microsoft switched to Chromium to develop Edge more than 2 years ago now. While, at the time, it caused a lot of discussions in the web community, not much has been written or said about it since then. The people working on Edge (including its DevTools) have been busy though, and the browser has a lot of unique features now.

Being based on the Chromium open source project does mean that Edge benefits from all of its features and bug fixes. Practically speaking, the Edge team ingests the changes made in the Chromium repository in their own repository.

But over the past year or so, the team started to create Edge-specific functionality based on the needs of Edge users and feedback. Edge DevTools now has a series of unique features that I will go over.

Opening, Closing, and Moving Tools

With almost 30 different panels, DevTools is a really complicated piece of software in any browser. But, you never really need access to all the tools at the same time. In fact, when starting DevTools for the first time, only a few panels are visible and you can add more later.

On the other hand though, it’s hard to discover the panels that aren’t shown by default, even if they could be really useful to you.

Edge added 3 small, yet powerful, features to address this:

• a close button on tabs to close the tools you don’t need anymore,
• a + (plus) button at the end of the tab bar to open any tool,
• a context menu option to move tools around.

The following GIF shows how closing and opening tools in both the main and drawer areas can be done in Edge.

You can also move tools between the main area and drawer area:

• right-clicking on a tab at the top shows a “Move to bottom” item, and
• right-clicking on a tab in the drawer shows a “Move to top” item.

Getting Contextual Help with the DevTools Tooltips

It is hard for beginners and seasoned developers alike to know all about DevTools. As I mentioned before, there are so many panels that it’s unlikely you know them all.

To address this, Edge added a way to go directly from the tools to their documentation on Microsoft’s website .

This new Tooltips feature works as a toggleable overlay that covers the tools. When enabled, panels are highlighted and contextual help is provided for each of them, with links to documentation.

You can start the Tooltips in 3 different ways:

• by using the Ctrl + Shift + H keyboard shortcut on Windows/Linux ( Cmd + Shift + H on Mac);
• by going into the main ( ... ) menu, then going into Help, and selecting “Toggle the DevTools Tooltips”;
• by using the command menu and typing “Tooltips”.

Customizing Colors

In code editing environments, developers love customizing their color themes to make the code easier to read and more pleasant to look at. Because web developers spend considerable amounts of time in DevTools too, it makes sense for it to also have customizable colors.

Edge just added a number of new themes to DevTools , on top of the already available dark and light themes. A total of 9 new themes were added. These come from VS Code and will therefore be familiar to people using this editor.

You can select the theme you want to use by going into the settings (using F1 or the gear icon in the top-right corner), or by using the command menu and typing theme .

Firefox DevTools

Similar to the Chrome DevTools team, the folks working on Firefox DevTools have been busy with a big architecture refresh aimed at modernizing their codebase. Additionally, their team is quite a bit smaller these days as Mozilla had to refocus over recent times. But, even though this means they had less time for adding new features, they still managed to release a few really interesting ones that I’ll go over now.

Debugging Unwanted Scrollbars

Have you ever asked yourself: “where is this scrollbar coming from?” I know I have, and now Firefox has a tool to debug this very problem.

In the Inspector panel, all elements that scroll have a scroll badge next to them, which is already useful when dealing with deeply nested DOM trees. On top of this, you can click this badge to reveal the element (or elements) that caused the scrollbar to appear.

You can find more documentation about it here .

Visualizing Tabbing Order

Navigating a web page with the keyboard requires using the tab key to move through focusable elements one by one. The order in which focusable elements get focused while using tab is an important aspect of the accessibility of your site and an incorrect order may be confusing to users. It’s especially important to pay attention to this as modern layout CSS techniques allow web developers to rearrange elements on a page very easily.

Firefox has a useful Accessibility Inspector panel that provides information about the accessibility tree, finds and reports various accessibility problems automatically, and lets you simulate different color vision deficiencies.

On top of these features, the panel now provides a new page overlay that displays the tabbing order for focusable elements.

To enable it, use the “Show Tabbing Order” checkbox in the toolbar.

A Brand New Performance Tool

Not many web development areas depend on tooling as much as performance optimization does. In this domain, Chrome DevTools’ Performance panel is best in class.

Over the past few years, Firefox engineers have been focusing on improving the performance of the browser itself, and to help them do this, they built a performance profiler tool. The tool was originally built to optimize the engine native code but supported analyzing JavaScript performance right from the start, too.

Today, this new performance tool replaces the old Firefox DevTools performance panel in pre-release versions (Nightly and Developer Edition). Take it for a spin when you get the chance.

Among other things, the new Firefox profiler supports sharing profiles with others so they can help you improve the performance of your recorded use case.

You can read documentation about it here , and learn more about the project on their GitHub repository .

Safari Web Inspector

Last but not least, let’s go over a few of the recent Safari features.

The small team at Apple has been keeping itself very busy with a wide range of improvements and fixes around the tools. Learning more about the Safari Web Inspector can help you be more productive when debugging your sites on iOS or tvOS devices. Furthermore, it has a bunch of features that other DevTools don’t, and that not a lot of people know about.

CSS Grid Debugging

With Firefox, Chrome, and Edge (and all Chromium-based browsers) having dedicated tools for visualizing and debugging CSS grids, Safari was the last major browser not to have this. Well, now it does!

Fundamentally, Safari now has the same features just like other browsers’ DevTools in this area. This is great as it means it’s easy to go from one browser to the next and still be productive.

• Grid badges are displayed in the Elements panel to quickly find grids.
• Clicking on the badge toggles the visualization overlay on the page.
• A new Layout panel is now displayed in the sidebar. It allows you to configure the grid overlay, see the list of all grids on the page and toggle the overlay for them.

What’s interesting about Safari’s implementation though is that they’ve really nailed the performance aspect of the tool. You can enable many different overlays at once, and scroll around the page without it causing any performance problems at all.

The other interesting thing is Safari introduced a 3-pane Elements panel, just like Firefox, which allows you to see the DOM, the CSS rules for the selected element, and the Layout panel all at once.

Find out more about the CSS Grid Inspector on this WebKit blog post .

A Slew of Debugger Improvements

Safari used to have a separate Resources and Debugger panel. They have merged them into a single Sources panel that makes it easier to find everything you need when debugging your code. Additionally, this makes the tool more consistent with Chromium which a lot of people are used to.

Consistency for common tasks is important in a cross-browser world. Web developers already need to test across multiple browsers, so if they need to learn a whole new paradigm when using another browser’s DevTools, it can make things more difficult than they need to be.

But Safari also recently focused on adding innovative features to its debugger that other DevTools don’t have.

Bootstrap script : Safari lets you write JavaScript code that is guaranteed to run first before any of the scripts on the page. This is very useful to instrument built-in functions for adding debugger statements or logging for example.

New breakpoint configurations : All browsers support multiple types of breakpoints like conditional breakpoints, DOM breakpoints, event breakpoints, and more.

Safari recently improved their entire suite of breakpoint types by giving them all a way to configure them extensively. With this new breakpoint feature, you can decide:

• if you want a breakpoint to only hit when a certain condition is true,
• if you want the breakpoint to pause execution at all, or just execute some code,
• or even play an audio beep so you know some line of code was executed.

queryInstances and queryHolders console functions : These two functions are really useful when your site starts using a lot of JavaScript objects. In some situations, it may become difficult to keep track of the dependencies between these objects, and memory leaks may start to appear, too.

Safari does have a Memory tool that can help resolve these issues by letting you explore memory heap snapshots. But sometimes you already know which class or object is causing the problem and you want to find what instances exist or what refers to it.

If Animal is a JavaScript class in your application, then queryInstances(Animal) will return an array of all of its instances.

If foo is an object in your application, then queryHolders(foo) will return an array of all the other objects that have references to foo .

Closing Thoughts

I hope these features will be useful to you. I can only recommend using multiple browsers and getting familiar with their DevTools. Being more familiar with other DevTools can prove useful when you have to debug an issue in a browser you don’t use on a regular basis.

Know that the companies which make browsers all have teams working on DevTools actively. They’re invested in making them better, less buggy, and more powerful. These teams depend on your feedback to build the right things. Without hearing about what problems you are facing, or what features you lack, it’s harder for them to make the right decisions about what to build.

Reporting bugs to a DevTools team won’t just help you when the fix comes, but may also be helping many others who have been facing the same issue.

It’s worth knowing that the DevTools teams at Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple and Google are usually fairly small and receive a lot of feedback, so reporting an issue does not mean it will be fixed quickly, but it does help, and those teams are listening .

Here are a few ways you can report bugs, ask questions or request features:

• Firefox uses Bugzilla as their public bug tracker and anyone is welcome to report bugs or ask for new features by creating a new entry there. All you need is a GitHub account to log in.
• Getting in touch with the team can either be done on Twitter by using the @FirefoxDevTools account or logging in to the Mozilla chat (find documentation about the chat here ).
• Safari also uses public bug tracking for their WebKit bugs . Here is documentation about how to search for bugs and report new ones .
• You can also get in touch with the team on Twitter with @webkit .
• Finally, you can also signal bugs about Safari and the Safari Web Inspector using the feedback assistant .
• The easiest way to report a problem or ask for a feature is by using the feedback button in DevTools (the little stick figure in the top-right corner of the tools).
• Asking questions to the team works best over Twitter by mentioning the @EdgeDevTools account.
• The team listens for feedback on the devtools-dev mailing list as well as on twitter at @ChromeDevTools .
• Since Chromium is the open-source project that powers Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge (and others), you can also report issues on the Chromium’s bug tracker .

With that, thank you for reading!

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How To Open Developer Tools In Safari

• Software & Applications
• Browsers & Extensions

Introduction

When it comes to web browsing, Safari stands out as a popular choice for Mac and iOS users. Whether you're a web developer, a tech enthusiast, or simply someone curious about the inner workings of the websites you visit, Safari's Developer Tools can provide valuable insights and functionalities. These tools empower users to inspect, debug, and optimize web content, making them indispensable for anyone involved in web development or simply interested in understanding the technical aspects of the internet.

In this article, we'll delve into the process of opening Developer Tools in Safari on both Mac and iOS devices. By the end, you'll have a comprehensive understanding of how to access these powerful tools, enabling you to explore the underlying structure of web pages, analyze network activity, and experiment with various web development features.

Let's embark on this journey to uncover the hidden capabilities of Safari's Developer Tools, empowering you to gain a deeper understanding of the web and its intricate design. Whether you're a seasoned developer or a curious individual eager to peek behind the digital curtain, the following sections will equip you with the knowledge to harness the full potential of Safari's Developer Tools.

Opening Developer Tools in Safari on Mac

Opening Developer Tools in Safari on a Mac is a straightforward process that provides access to a wealth of powerful features for web development and debugging. Whether you're a seasoned developer or a curious individual eager to explore the inner workings of websites, Safari's Developer Tools offer a comprehensive suite of functionalities to aid in understanding and optimizing web content.

To initiate the process of opening Developer Tools in Safari on a Mac, you can follow these simple steps:

Using the Menu Bar:

• Launch Safari on your Mac and navigate to the menu bar located at the top of the screen.
• Click on "Safari" in the menu bar to reveal a dropdown menu.
• From the dropdown menu, select "Preferences" to access Safari's settings.

Accessing the Advanced Settings:

• Within the Preferences window, click on the "Advanced" tab located at the far right.
• Check the box next to "Show Develop menu in menu bar" to enable the Develop menu within Safari.

Opening Developer Tools:

• Once the Develop menu is enabled, navigate back to the menu bar at the top of the screen.
• Click on "Develop" to reveal a dropdown menu containing various web development tools and options.
• From the dropdown menu, select "Show Web Inspector" to open the Developer Tools panel.

Upon completing these steps, the Developer Tools panel will appear, providing access to a wide array of functionalities such as inspecting elements, analyzing network activity, debugging JavaScript, and much more. This powerful suite of tools empowers users to delve into the underlying structure of web pages, identify and rectify issues, and optimize the performance of web content.

By familiarizing yourself with the process of opening Developer Tools in Safari on a Mac, you gain the ability to harness the full potential of these tools, enabling you to explore, analyze, and enhance the web browsing experience. Whether you're a web developer seeking to fine-tune a website's performance or simply intrigued by the technical aspects of the internet, Safari's Developer Tools on Mac provide a gateway to a deeper understanding of web development and design.

Opening Developer Tools in Safari on iPhone or iPad

Accessing Developer Tools in Safari on an iPhone or iPad allows users to gain valuable insights into the technical aspects of web content and perform various web development tasks directly from their mobile devices. Whether you're a web developer on the go or simply curious about the inner workings of websites, Safari's Developer Tools provide a convenient way to inspect, debug, and optimize web content on iOS devices.

To initiate the process of opening Developer Tools in Safari on an iPhone or iPad, follow these simple steps:

Launching Safari: Begin by unlocking your iPhone or iPad and locating the Safari icon on the home screen. Tap the Safari icon to open the Safari browser .

Enabling Developer Tools: With Safari open, navigate to the website or web page you wish to inspect and debug. Once on the desired web page, tap the address bar at the top of the screen to reveal the URL and other options.

Accessing Developer Tools: In the address bar, enter "inspect://" followed by the URL of the web page you are currently viewing. For example, if you are on the website "example.com," you would enter "inspect://example.com" in the address bar and tap "Go" or the "Enter" key on the on-screen keyboard .

Upon completing these steps, Safari's Developer Tools will be activated, providing access to a range of functionalities such as inspecting elements, analyzing network activity, debugging JavaScript, and more. This powerful suite of tools empowers users to delve into the underlying structure of web pages, identify and rectify issues, and optimize the performance of web content directly from their iPhone or iPad.

By familiarizing yourself with the process of opening Developer Tools in Safari on an iPhone or iPad, you gain the ability to harness the full potential of these tools, enabling you to explore, analyze, and enhance the web browsing experience while on the go. Whether you're a web developer seeking to troubleshoot a website's functionality or simply intrigued by the technical aspects of the internet, Safari's Developer Tools on iOS devices provide a convenient gateway to a deeper understanding of web development and design.

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Use the developer tools in the Develop menu in Safari on Mac

If you’re a web developer, the Safari Develop menu provides tools you can use to make sure your website works well with all standards-based web browsers.

If you don’t see the Develop menu in the menu bar, choose Safari > Preferences, click Advanced, then select “Show Develop menu in menu bar.”

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New iOS Dev Tools for Chrome Released

Introduction.

Google has just released a new set of developer tools aimed at improving the iOS workflow in the Chrome browser. These tools provide iOS developers with a full suite of debugging, testing, and optimization features directly within Chrome DevTools. By allowing iOS devs to stay within a single browser, the new tools promise to increase productivity and accessibility for iOS development.

The key features include a remote debugger for iOS devices, an iOS device emulator, and React Native framework integration. With the debugger, developers can now set breakpoints and inspect iOS apps and Safari webviews right from their Chrome DevTools instance. The emulator lets you test iOS apps and websites on virtual iPhones and iPads without needing real hardware. There is also built-in support for React Native to streamline debugging React iOS apps. And since the tools are open source, the community can contribute as well.

These capabilities bring the entire iOS dev environment into Chrome for the first time. The tools are now available by installing the Chrome DevTools iOS extension or using the latest Chrome Canary release. By leveraging Chrome's existing devtools foundation, the new iOS tools enable developers to eliminate context switching and improve team collaboration. It's easier than ever for web developers familiar with Chrome to start building iOS apps. Let's take a closer look at what these powerful new tools can do.

Key Features of the New iOS Developer Tools

The iOS debugging and testing tools introduce many new capabilities for developers using Chrome. Here are some of the key features:

iOS Debugger

• Allows remote debugging of iOS devices connected to your computer via USB.
• Supports breakpoint setting, call stack inspection, and other debugging features.
• Integrates iOS debugging right into the Chrome DevTools workflow.
• Provides inspection of iOS webviews inside native apps like Facebook, Instagram, etc.
• Lets you emulate device sensors like GPS, accelerometer, etc.

iOS Device Emulator

• Lets you test iOS apps and sites without needing a real device.
• Supports emulating various iPhone and iPad models like iPhone 14, iPad Pro, etc.
• Emulates device features like screen size, resolution, touch events, etc.
• Simulates device sensors and location to test geo features.
• Integrates with developer workflow in Chrome DevTools.

React Native Framework Support

• Provides integration for debugging React Native iOS apps.
• Allows inspecting React Native views and touch events.
• Supports debugging JS runtime errors in React Native.
• Integrates React Native devtools extensions.
• Enables seamless React Native dev workflow in Chrome.

These tools add powerful native iOS development capabilities to Chrome for the first time. Web developers can now use their existing Chrome DevTools skills to build iOS apps. And the open source nature of the tools allows the community to contribute features and improvements over time.

Comparing to Existing iOS Dev Tools

The new iOS tools in Chrome provide unique advantages over existing options like Xcode, AppCode, and React Native Debugger:

• Fully integrated into Chrome DevTools, no context switching.
• Available on Windows, unlike Xcode which requires a Mac.
• Leverages Chrome's web dev features like network inspection.
• Open source nature enables community innovation.
• Easier collaboration by using the same tools remotely.
• More lightweight than Xcode, faster iteration speeds.

While Xcode is the default IDE for native iOS development, it can be bloated and slow. The Chrome tools provide a faster and more lightweight environment focused just on debugging and testing. And React Native Debugger is limited to React Native apps, while the Chrome tools work for both native and React Native iOS apps.

Deeper Look at React Native Integration

The integration with React Native provides some powerful capabilities for debugging iOS apps built with React Native:

• Inspect views and touch events within React components.
• Set breakpoints in React Native JavaScript code.
• Debug JavaScript runtime errors and exceptions.
• Integration with React DevTools for Chrome.
• Support for Hot Reloading to view changes instantly.
• Use React Native console.log() statements in Chrome console.

This enables the standard React Native workflow but entirely within the Chrome DevTools environment. Things like Hot Reloading help speed up iteration and development. And access to the Chrome Web Store brings in React DevTools extensions for added functionality.

Getting Started with the iOS Developer Tools

Ready to give the new iOS devtools a try? Here is a quick guide to getting set up:

Installing the Tools

• The tools are pre-installed in the latest Chrome Canary 105+ release.
• Or install the Chrome DevTools iOS extension from the Chrome Web Store.
• Requires Chrome 104+ for extension support.
• After install, access tools via DevTools Main Menu > More Tools > iOS.

Debugging on Physical Devices

• Connect your iPhone via USB and enable USB Debugging.
• In Chrome DevTools, select your device from the target dropdown.
• Select "inspect device" from the context menu.
• Use DevTools as normal while debugging - set breakpoints, inspect elements, etc.
• Can debug Safari webviews like those in the Facebook or Instagram apps.

Using the Emulator

• Open the emulator tab in Chrome DevTools.
• Select your desired iOS device model profile like iPhone 14 Pro.
• Click start to launch the emulator instance.
• Interact with the emulator like a real device.
• Use the debugger tools to inspect emulator views, sensors, etc.

The documentation at devhunt.org/ios-devtools-docs provides more details on configuring and using the full capabilities of the new tools. With the power of Chrome DevTools now extended to iOS, web developers can start building iOS apps faster than ever before.

Benefits of the New Tools

The addition of iOS tools directly within Chrome DevTools brings some great benefits:

• Speeds up developer workflow by enabling full iOS dev environment in Chrome.
• Saves money on hardware costs by reducing need for real iOS devices.
• Improves collaboration by letting teams debug remotely on the same tools.
• Increases productivity by eliminating context switching.
• Fosters innovation by making iOS development more accessible.
• Better app quality through faster debugging and testing iterations.
• Access to Chrome Web Store extensions and devtools.
• Open source approach enables community contributions.

By staying within Chrome's robust dev environment, developers can maximize efficiency while building high quality iOS apps and websites. The new tools lower the barrier to entry for web developers looking to expand into iOS. And the remote debugging support makes it easy for teams to collaborate. Overall, the new iOS tools provide a major boost in productivity and innovation for iOS devs.

Future Evolution Possibilities

Because the iOS devtools are open source, there are exciting possibilities for the community to shape their future evolution:

• Contribute more device emulation profiles for testing.
• Build custom devtools extensions tailored for iOS debugging.
• Add support for new iOS versions and features.
• Expand React Native integration with more functionality.
• Improve existing tools like the debugger and emulator.
• Support for Swift and Objective-C debugging down the road.
• Integrate with more iOS dev workflows and tools.

The open source approach allows developers to mold the tools to best fit their needs. And it enables a level of innovation and specialization difficult to achieve with proprietary tools. As more developers use the tools, we can look forward to seeing community contributions take them even further.

Google's new set of iOS developer tools represent a major step forward for iOS devs using Chrome. The highly anticipated features like remote debugging, device emulation, and React Native support vastly improve developer productivity. By providing iOS dev capabilities right within Chrome DevTools, the new tools streamline development workflows and encourage innovation. iOS developers should absolutely check out these tools on DevHunt and provide feedback to help shape their ongoing evolution. With the release of the iOS devtools, Chrome is now truly a one-stop development environment for building web, Android, and iOS apps faster and more collaboratively than ever before.

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