WebStorm 2017.2 Help

Viewing Actual HTML DOM

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Introduction

Besides Live Editing, that is, monitoring how the changes you make in an HTML file are rendered in the actual browser window, during a debugging session you can perform a reverse operation using the Elements tab of the Debug tool window. The tab shows the HTML source code that implements the actual browser page and its HTML DOM structure. Moreover, any changes made to the page through the browser are immediately reflected in the Elements tab.

Before you start

  1. Make sure you are using the Chrome browser for debugging.
  2. Make sure the LiveEdit plugin is enabled. The plugin is activated by default. If the plugin is disabled, enable it on the Plugins page as described in Enabling and Disabling Plugins.

Viewing the HTML source and DOM structure

To view the HTML source and DOM structure of the actual page

  1. To initiate a debugging session, create a run configuration of the type JavaScript Debug and click the Debug button debug on the toolbar. WebStorm establishes connection with the JetBrains Chrome extension and starts a debugging session.
  2. Switch to the Debug tool window and open the Elements tab. The tab consists of three panes, all the panes are read-only. The Text pane shows the HTML source code of the page that is currently opened in the browser. As soon as any change is made to the page in the browser (e.g. clicking an icon), the code in the pane is updated accordingly.

    The Structure pane shows the DOM structure of the HTML code in the Text pane.

    The Scripts pane shows a tree of executed scripts.

    The Structure and Text panes are mutually synchronized. When you click a node in the DOM structure, WebStorm scrolls through the contents of the Text pane.

    The panes are also synchronized with the browser. WebStorm highlights the element in the browser as soon as you click the corresponding node in the DOM structure or in the Text pane.

Last modified: 29 November 2017

See Also