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
    Designing for Simplicity

    Before we get started, it's worth me spending a brief moment introducing myself to you. My name is Mark (or @integralist if Twitter happens to be your communication tool of choice) and I currently work for BBC News in London England as a principal engineer/tech...

  • By
    I’m an Impostor

    This is the hardest thing I've ever had to write, much less admit to myself.  I've written resignation letters from jobs I've loved, I've ended relationships, I've failed at a host of tasks, and let myself down in my life.  All of those feelings were very...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    dat.gui:  Exceptional JavaScript Interface Controller

    We all love trusted JavaScript frameworks like MooTools, jQuery, and Dojo, but there's a big push toward using focused micro-frameworks for smaller purposes. Of course, there are positives and negatives to using them.  Positives include smaller JS footprint (especially good for mobile) and less cruft, negatives...

  • By
    Instagram For MooTools

    If you're still rocking an iPhone and fancy taking a photo every now and then, you'd be crazy not to be using an app called Instagram.  With Instagram you take the photos just as you would with your native iPhone camera app, but Instagram...

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!