Open a Browser Tab with DevTools Open by Default

By  on  

Using command line flags is a great way to subtly improve productivity. Whether saving yourself keystrokes or enabling specific features, it's very much worth knowing the application flags available to you.

To launch a new tab with DevTools in Chrome, you can use the --auto-open-devtools-for-tabs command line flag:

/Applications/Google\ Chrome\ Canary.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome\ Canary --auto-open-devtools-for-tabs https://davidwalsh.name

Having the DevTools console immediately launch when opening a new tab can be very helpful, if only to avoid needing to complete the keyboard shortcuts every time you launch a tab. If you're an uber-nerd like me, you're never not in developer mode!

Recent Features

  • By
    7 Essential JavaScript Functions

    I remember the early days of JavaScript where you needed a simple function for just about everything because the browser vendors implemented features differently, and not just edge features, basic features, like addEventListener and attachEvent.  Times have changed but there are still a few functions each developer should...

  • By
    Responsive Images: The Ultimate Guide

    Chances are that any Web designers using our Ghostlab browser testing app, which allows seamless testing across all devices simultaneously, will have worked with responsive design in some shape or form. And as today's websites and devices become ever more varied, a plethora of responsive images...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Basic AJAX Requests Using MooTools 1.2

    AJAX has become a huge part of the modern web and that wont change in the foreseeable future. MooTools has made AJAX so simple that a rookie developer can get their dynamic pages working in no time. Step 1: The XHTML Here we define two links...

  • By
    MooTools & Printing – Creating a Links Table of Contents

    One detail we sometimes forget when considering print for websites is that the user cannot see the URLs of links when the page prints. While showing link URLs isn't always important, some websites could greatly benefit from doing so. This tutorial will show you...

Discussion

  1. zakius

    having to use chromium would greatly overweight the tiny benefit of having dev-tools auto open effectively making everything much worse

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!