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Loftie Ellis
Loftie Ellis

Posted on • Originally published at loftie.com

Simulate Slow Internet Chrome Things you may not know about Chrome DevTools

I use the Chrome Developer tools pretty much daily, but there are a few things I wish I knew earlier

1: Easily get a reference to any inspected element

You can get a reference to any inspected element from the console by right-clicking on the element in the 'elements' view, and choosing 'Store as global variable'.

Easily get a reference to any inspected element

2: Create live expressions pinned to your console

You can create a live expression that is constantly evaluated and pinned to the top of your console. This can be very useful to watch certain elements that you know should update on the page.

Live expression in Chrome

3: Simulate slow internet

You can simulate different internet speeds directly from the Network tab. Really useful to see how your code reacts when it can take several seconds to load.

Test different internet speeds

4: Disable Caching, and preserve logs

I have had many issues that turned out to be not errors at all, simply cached code that was wrongly loaded. To prevent this you can turn off all caching from the network tab. (Note that it will only disable cache when the DevTools window is open)

Preserve logs are another useful feature to keeps your logs/console output from clearing when you navigate through different pages.

Disable cache and Preserve logs

5: Take screenshots directly from the developer console

Chrome devtools has a built-in screenshot tool. To use it type the ctrl+shift+p (with the devtools window open), then type 'screenshot'.

Take screenshots directly from the developer tools

6: There is more to logging than console.log

We all use console.log for debug output, but you have a few more options:

console.warn, console.error

console.warn prints out a different coloured message, and you can filter the log levels.

console.warn, console.error

console.table

If you have a structed list of data console.table will print it in a pretty table format.

console.table(data)

There are several more such as console.assert, console.group, you can see the rest here:

7: $_ returns the most recently evaluated expression

Use $_ to reference the return value of the previous operation executed in the console.

$_

8: $ is a shortcut for document.querySelector

You can use $ to quickly select elements from the console, without jquery.
Similarly $$ is a shortcut for document.querySelectorAll

9: Trigger hover or focus state in styles panel

Hover states can be tricky to inspect since you have to move your mouse over the element, but there is an easy way: Under Styles, you can force an element style.

Force certain element states

10: Ctrl+click to find where a CSS property is defined

Ever wondered exactly where a certain css rule was defined? That is easy to find out, you can simply ctrl+click (cmd+click on a Mac) on the rule.

Ctrl+click takes you to where the css rule was defined

Do you have any other DevTools tips? let me know in the comments :)

This post was originally published at https://loftie.com/post/things-you-may-not-know-about-chrome-devtools/

Top comments (40)

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emnudge profile image
EmNudge

These are nice tips! To add to a few more:
$0 is the currently selected element in the elements viewer tab
$$() is shorthand for document.querySelectorAll()
You can use the color picker to get a color on any page by clicking on a color box in the css. You can change the color format with the arrows to the right.

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worsnupd profile image
Daniel Worsnup

To add to this: $1 is the previously selected element, $2 the one before that, etc, etc.

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emnudge profile image
EmNudge

Wow, it seems so obvious, but I never even knew that.

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rafi993 profile image
Rafi

Chrome dev tools has a dark mode :)

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iamschulz profile image
Daniel Schulz

Chrome Dev Tools supports themes!
chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/...

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rafi993 profile image
Rafi

I made little tweaks to it

dark-red

github.com/mauricecruz/zero-base-t...

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lpellis profile image
Loftie Ellis

True, and it looks quite pleasing.

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arpitvasani profile image
Arpit Vasani

πŸ‘ Nice article.

Don't forget the styling in console.log πŸ˜„

styling in console

and the dark theme
Welcome to dark side

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bgdesigns profile image
Bryan George

Does anyone know if Chrome has any support for better flex/grid debugging like Firefox has? I know you can hover on a div that has a grid and it shows an outline. But I have not see really anything for flex.

This is what is holding me back from using Chrome full time. Really love those features from Firefox.

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tpina profile image
Tiago Pina

In the console, if you do document.designMode = "on" you can then edit the page in your browser as WYSIWYG.

Great to mock-up screenshots!

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mburszley profile image
Maximilian Burszley

A convenient bookmarklet for toggling it:

javascript:(function(){document.designMode=document.designMode==="on"?"off":"on";})();
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lukegarrigan profile image
Luke Garrigan • Edited

Thank you for the Blog,

The live expressions thing is an absolute gamechanger, I feel like such an idiot as it is literally right there and I've never bothered to find out what it did.

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ut4utc profile image
ut4utc

we never forget we never forgive...

how Chrome kill Firebug

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youpiwaza profile image
max

You can access localStorage & sessionStorage from Application

You can use both Network & Performance to improve website loading time.

Elements > CSS > Computed > To see what is currently used by your element.

Great article :)

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chrisachard profile image
Chris Achard

These are all great! It always amazes me what the tools I'm already using can do that I don't know about yet :) Thanks!

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neoroma profile image
Π ΠΎΠΌΠ°Π½ Π¨

copy(temp1) after storing as global variable πŸ₯°

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brasileiro profile image
Daniel Brasileiro

OMG the first 2 ones are 100% new to me! They are awesome! Thanks!

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sgaawc profile image
Mazen Khiami

All were great. Add β€˜Control + P’ shortcut pressed anywhere in the devtools to search for any file in thr current project for a quick and easy access. Useful if you r working in Angular with lots of components and files in the tree view.

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michaelnle profile image
Michael LeπŸ‘¨β€πŸ’»

You can add -method: OPTIONS to remove all option calls in the network tab.

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akashkava profile image
Akash Kava

Take screenshots directly from the developer console

Wow !!

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k_penguin_sato profile image
K-Sato • Edited

Thanks for the great post! Didn't know many of them!

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