An Introduction To Getting Started with Google Chrome’s DevTools

Post Syndicated from Andy Haine original https://www.anchor.com.au/blog/2020/10/an-introduction-to-getting-started-with-google-chromes-devtools/

Whether you’re a cloud administrator or developer, having a strong arsenal of dev tools under your belt will help to make your everyday tasks and website or application maintenance a lot more efficient.

One of the tools our developers use every day to assist our clients is Chrome’s Devtools. Whether you work on websites or applications for your own clients, or you manage your own company’s assets, Devtools is definitely worth spending the time to get to know. From style and design to troubleshooting technical issues, you would be hard-pressed to find such an effective tool for both.

Whether you already use Chrome’s DevTools on a daily basis, or you’re yet to discover its power and functionality, we hope we can show you something new in our 3-part DevTools series! In part 1 of this series, we will be giving you a brief introduction to DevTools. In part 2, we will cover diagnosing security issues using DevTools. Finally, in part 3, we’ll go over some of the more useful tips and tricks that you can use to enhance your workflow.

While in this series, we will be using Chrome’s DevTools, most of this advice also applies to other popular browser’s developer tools, such as Microsoft Edge or Mozilla Firefox. Although the functionality and location of the tools will differ, doing a quick Google search should help you to dig up anything you’re after.

An Introduction to Chrome DevTools

Chrome DevTools, also known as Chrome Developer tools, is a set of tools built into the Chrome browser to assist web/application developers and novice users alike. Some of the things it can be used for includes, but is not limited to:

  • Debugging and troubleshooting errors
  • Editing on the fly
  • Adjusting/testing styling (CSS) before making live changes
  • Emulating different network speeds (like 3G) to determine load times on slower networks
  • Testing responsiveness across different devices
  • Performance auditing to ensure your website or application is fast and well optimised

All of the above features can greatly enhance productivity when you’re building or editing, whether you’re a professional developer or a hobbyist looking to build your first site or application.

Chrome DevTools has been around for a long time (since Chrome’s initial release), but it’s a tool that has been continuously worked on and improved since its beginnings. It is now extremely feature-rich, and still being improved every day. Keep in mind; the above features are only a very brief overview of all of the functionality DevTools has to offer. In this series, we’ll get you comfortably acquainted with DevTools, but you can additionally find very in-depth documentation over at Google’s DevTools site here, where they provide breakdowns of every feature.

How to open Chrome DevTools

There are a few different ways that you can access DevTools in your Chrome browser.

  1. Open DevTools by right-clicking on anything within the browser page, and select the “Inspect” button. This will open DevTools and jump to the specific element that you selected.
  2. Another method is via the Chrome browser menu. Simply go to the top right corner and click the three dots > More tools > Developer tools.
  3. If you prefer hotkeys, you can open DevTools by doing either of the following, depending on your operating system:

Windows = F12 or Ctrl + shift + I

Mac = Cmd + Opt + I

Customising your Environment

Now that you know what DevTools is and how to open it, it’s worth spending a little bit of time customising DevTools to your own personal preferences.

To begin with, DevTools has a built-in dark mode. When you’re looking at code or a lot of small text all the time, using a dark theme can greatly help to reduce eye strain. Enabling dark mode can be done by following the instructions below:

  1. Open up DevTools using your preferred method above
  2. Once you’re in, click the settings cog on the top right to open up the DevTools settings panel
  3. Under the ‘Appearance’ heading, adjust the ‘Theme’ to ‘Dark’

You may wish to spend some time exploring the remainder of the preferences section of DevTools, as there are a lot of layout and functionality customisations available.

Conclusion

This concludes part 1 of our 3 part DevTools series. We hope that this has been a useful and informative introduction to getting started using DevTools for your own project! Now that you’re familiar with the basics stay tuned for part 2 where we will show you how you can diagnose basic security issues – and more!

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