IE11 (+Win8.1.1) F12 Developer Tools for the SharePoint Dev

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This blog post is about all the new nifty features I'm finding in the latest IE11 F12 developer tools.  I updated my Windows to 8.1 update 1, and IE11 was updated.  I started seeing a few cool new features, and went on Twitter to find the official documentation.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/dn641599(v=vs.85).aspx

Was supplied by @AdamTReineke

https://twitter.com/AdamTReineke/status/454678702169677824

 

Rather than bore you with a list of features, which is on MSDN.  I want to just quickly share how I'm using some of them.

Disclaimer - I had just watched LEGO movie.  So EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!

 

DOM Explorer

 

1. CSS Changes

 

  • When you "touch up" CSS in SharePoint to get the exact look you want.  You often forget which rule you had applied.
  • The DOM Explorer's "Changes" tab tracks all the individual changes, and you can revert an individual rule, or copy them all and paste to your CSS file.
  • Copy All.  Awesome!

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2. Pseudo Rules

 

  • You know those pesky :hover and :visited CSS rules in SharePoint that can never find to eliminate? 
  • Now you can apply :hover or :visited and see the effect rule without actually trying to catch your mouse hovering.  Haha.  Awesome!

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The super cool updated Console object

 

3. Console info, warning, error

  • My "warnings" are currently filtered. 
  • use console.info() console.warn() and console.error() to write to these.

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  • No ribbon button but you can right-click to filter Log messages too.  For those really spammy libraries, which is pretty awesome!

 

4. Console handles objects, multiple objects and HTML

 

  • Chrome and Firefox both were able to log objects and inspect them.  IE11 used to just log the [object].tostring which was pretty useless.
  • The update now fixes that, and allow multiple arguments to be logged at the same time.

 

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5. Console always available for dev. 

 

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  • So you can have all your logs happening without trying to start the debugger before you load the page
  • Remember your end users won't have this on, so TEST before you deploy code.

 

6. Console can switch target to an iFrame. 

 

  • Note, I couldn't get this to work in IE8-Compat mode (which my SP2010 runs on).  This works fine for IE9, IE10, Edge.
  • This is awesome for debugging objects in the SP.UI.Dialog

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Debug

 

7. Debugger can be attached without reloading the page

 

  • Not sure if we need a picture to describe how awesome this is.  I imagine the picture will involve unicorns, rainbows and kittens.  AWESOME!

 

8. Just My code

 

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  • Debugger only stops on my code.
  • Note, some libraries can throw error when you call it wrong - so sometimes not so awesome.

 

9. Pretty Print

 

  • Oh crap.  Something in sp.runtime.js don't know how to read this...

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  • Not anymore in 2014!
  • Hit pretty-print - the sp.runtime.js becomes actually readable, and you can set line-based debugging too!

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  • I didn't switch to sp.runtime.debug.js - this is awesome!

 

10. Source Maps

 

  • Now finally we have source map support.  Here is me debugging Typescript in IE11

 

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Summary

  • The developer story on IE11 (after this update) is awesome!