What's New In DevTools (Chrome 108)

Jecelyn Yeen

Hints for inactive CSS properties

DevTools now identifies CSS styles that are valid but have no visible effect. In the Styles pane, DevTools fades out the inactive properties. Hover over the icon next to it to understand why the rule has no visible effect.

Hints for inactive CSS properties.

Chromium issue: 1178508

Auto-detect XPath and text selectors in the Recorder panel

The Recorder panel now supports XPath and text selectors. Start recording a user flow and the recorder automatically picks the XPath and shortest unique text of an element as selector if available.

XPath and text selectors in the Recorder panel.

Chromium issues: 1327206,1327209

Step through comma-separated expressions

You can now step through comma-separated expressions during debugging. This improves the debuggability of minified code.

Step through comma-separated expressions.

Previously, DevTools only supported stepping through semicolon-separated expressions.

Given the code below,

function foo() {}

function bar() {
  foo();
  foo();
  return 42;
}

Transpilers and minifiers may turn them into comma-separated expressions.

function bar(){return foo(),foo(),42}

This creates confusion during debugging because the stepping behavior is different between minified and authored code. It is even more confusing when using source maps to debug the minified code in terms of the original code, as the developer is then looking at semicolons (which were under the hood turned into commas by the toolchain) but the debugger doesn't stop on them.

Chromium issue: 1370200

Improved Ignore list setting

Go to Settings > Ignore List. DevTools improves the design to help you configure the rules to ignore a single script or pattern of scripts.

The Ignore List tab.

Chromium issue: 1356517

Miscellaneous highlights

These are some noteworthy fixes in this release:

  • Autocomplete CSS property name in the Styles pane on pressing space. (1343316)
  • Remove auto scroll in the Element panel’s breadcrumb. (1369734)

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.