wiki:WebInspector

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Removing spam links, moving links to blog posts into a chronological order.

Web Inspector

The Web Inspector allows you to view the page source, live DOM hierarchy, script debugging, profiling and more!

Enabling Web Inspector

  • Safari — Enable the Develop menu option in the Advanced preferences. Use the optional toolbar button, Develop menu or Inspect Element context menu to access the Web Inspector.
  • Google Chrome — Enabled by default, use the Inspect Element context menu to access the Web Inspector.
  • Any WebKit client — Find the application's bundle identifier. Enter the following command once in Terminal, inserting the bundle identifier, and relaunch the application in order to use the Web Inspector.
    defaults write «bundle-identifier-here» WebKitDeveloperExtras -bool true
    

Using the Web Inspector

The Web Inspector can be opened by right clicking anywhere on a web page and choosing Inspect Element. Once open, it highlights the node on the page as it is selected in the hierarchy. You can also search for nodes by node name, id and CSS class name.

The Node pane shows the current node type and name, as well as any element attributes.

Under the Style pane we show all the CSS rules that apply to the focused node. These rules are listed in cascade order with overridden properties striked-out—letting you truly see how cascading stylesheets affect the page layout. All shorthand properties have a disclosure-triangle to show and hide the expanded properties created by the shorthand.

The Metrics pane provides a quick visual look at how margins, borders and padding affect the current node.

Various HTML and JavaScript properties, including length of text nodes, offsetWidth/Height, class names, and parent/sibling information are vieweable in the Properties pane.

See Safari User Guide for Web Developers for more details on other panels of the Web Inspector.

Hacking on the Web Inspector

Most of the Web Inspector's code is HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, so it's very easy to implement new features and fix bugs! Click here to see a list of Web Inspector bugs and feature requests.

Related Blog Posts

Introducing the Web Inspector
Yet another one more thing… a new Web Inspector!
Web Inspector Redesign
Web Inspector Updates

Shortcut Keys

Safari

Mac Windows / Linux
Show Web Inspector ⌥⌘I Ctrl-Alt-I
Show Error Console ⌥⌘C Ctrl-Alt-C
Start Profiling Javascript ⌥⇧⌘P Ctrl-Alt-P

Chrome & Chromium

Mac Windows / Linux
Show Web Inspector ⌥⌘I Ctrl-Shift-I
Show Error Console ⌥⌘J Ctrl-Shift-J

Web Inspector

Mac Windows / Linux
Next Panel ⌘] Ctrl-]
Previous Panel ⌘[ Ctrl-[
Toggle Console Esc Esc
Focus Search Box ⌘F Ctrl-F
Find Next ⌘G Ctrl-G
Find Previous ⇧⌘G Ctrl-Shift-G

Console

Mac Windows / Linux
Next Suggestion Tab Tab
Previous Suggestion ⇧Tab Shift-Tab
Accept Suggestion Right Right
Previous Command / Line Up Up
Next Command / Line Down Down
Previous Command ⌃P
Next Command ⌃N
Clear History ⌘K or ⌃L Ctrl-L
Execute Return Enter

Elements Panel

Mac Windows / Linux
Navigate Up/Down Up/Down
Expand/Collapse Node Right/Left Right/Left
Expand Node Double-Click on tag Double-Click on tag
Edit Attribute Return or Double-Click on attribute Enter or Double-Click on attribute

Styles Pane

Mac Windows / Linux
Edit Rule Double-Click Double-Click
Edit Next/Previous Property Tab/⇧Tab Tab/Shift-Tab
Insert New Property Double-Click on whitespace Double-Click on whitespace
Increment/Decrement Value Up/Down Up/Down
Increment/Decrement Value by 10 ⇧Up/⇧Down Shift-Up/Shift-Down
Increment/Decrement Value by 10 PageUp/PageDown PageUp/PageDown
Increment/Decrement Value by 100 ⇧PageUp/⇧PageDown Shift-PageUp/Shift-PageDown
Increment/Decrement Value by 0.1 ⌥Up/⌥Down Alt-Up/Alt-Down

Debugger

Mac Windows / Linux
Select Next Call Frame ⌃. Ctrl-.
Select Previous Call Frame ⌃, Ctrl-,
Continue F8 or ⌘/ F8 or Ctrl-/
Step Over F10 or ⌘' F10 or Ctrl-'
Step Into F11 or ⌘; F11 or Ctrl-;
Step Out ⇧F11 or ⇧⌘; Shift-F11 or Ctrl-Shift-;
Evaluate Selection ⇧⌘E Ctrl-Shift-E
Toggle Breakpoint Condition Click on line number Click on line number
Edit Breakpoint Condition Right-Click on line number Right-Click on line number

WEb INspector REmote experiment

Safari User Guide for Web Developers In early 2010, an experiment was made to get Web Inspector to run in a plain old web page, debugging a remote web browsing session in another browser window.

A write-up is available here: weinre - WEb INspector REmote, and the relevant source and demo archives are attached to this page.

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