What's New In DevTools (Chrome 59)

Kayce Basques

Welcome to another installment of the DevTools release notes. Watch the video below or read on to see what's new in Chrome DevTools in Chrome 59!

Highlights

New features

CSS and JS code coverage

Find unused CSS and JS code with the new Coverage tab. When you load or run a page, the tab tells you how much code was used, versus how much was loaded. You can reduce the size of your pages by only shipping the code that you need.

The Coverage tab

Clicking on a URL reveals that file in the Sources panel with a breakdown of which lines of code executed.

A breakdown of code coverage in the Sources panel

Each line of code is color-coded:

  • Solid green means that line of code executed.
  • Solid red means it did not execute.
  • A line of code that is both red and green, such as line 3 in the screenshot above, means that only some code on that line executed. For example, a ternary expression like var b = (a > 0) ? a : 0 is colored both red and green.

To open the Coverage tab:

  1. Open the Command Menu.
  2. Start typing Coverage and select Show Coverage.

Full-page screenshots

Check out the video below to learn how to take a screenshot from the top of the page, all the way to the bottom.

Block requests

Want to see how your page behaves when a particular script, stylesheet, or other resource isn't available? Right-click on the request in the Network panel and select Block Request URL. A new Request blocking tab pops up in the Drawer, which lets you manage blocked requests.

Block Request URL

Step over async await

Up until now, trying to step through code like the snippet below was a headache. You'd be in the middle of test(), stepping over a line, and then you'd get interrupted by the setInterval() code. Now, when you step through async code like test(), DevTools steps from the first to last line with consistency.

  function wait(ms) {
    return new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, ms)).then(() => "Yay");
  }

  // do some work in background.
  setInterval(() => 42, 200);

  async function test() {
    debugger;
    const hello = "world";
    const response = await fetch('index.html');
    const tmp = await wait(1000);
    console.log(tmp);
    return hello;
  }

  async function runTest() {
    let result = await test();
    console.log(result);
  }

P.S. want to level up your debugging skills? Check out these new-ish docs:

Changes

Unified Command Menu

When you open the Command Menu now, notice that your command is prepended with a greater-than character (>). This is because the Command Menu has been unified with the Open File menu, which is Command+O (Mac), or Control+O (Windows, Linux).

Download the preview channels

Consider using the Chrome Canary, Dev, or Beta as your default development browser. These preview channels give you access to the latest DevTools features, let you test cutting-edge web platform APIs, and help you find issues on your site before your users do!

Get in touch with the Chrome DevTools team

Use the following options to discuss the new features, updates, or anything else related to DevTools.

What's new in DevTools

A list of everything that has been covered in the What's new in DevTools series.