Opera Software has just released the first official version of Dragonfly, the web developer toolkit which ships with the Opera web browser. Opera Dragonfly was first introduced in version 9.5 in 2008 and was in beta ever since. But now Dragonfly is ready for prime time and offers several compelling features you won’t find in competitor products such as Firebug.
Dragonfly allows debugging of the HTML DOM, Javascript, CSS and more, similar to Firebug and developer tools found in other browsers. A user can set breakpoints and watches, alter scripts on-the-fly, execute statements in the current environment from a console, and audit page resources and local storage.
Opera Dragonfly also has a few extra tricks up its sleeve like color picker and color palette feature, a network inspector that allows you to write custom requests and a revamped JavaScript debugger. Dragonfly’s DOM Inspector is an excellent one when compared to similar functions on competitor product. You can examine HTML element nodes, text and CSS properties and even debug and edit SVG graphics on the fly. It is possible to view the data stored by your application, and monitor network traffic. A Resource Inspector allows you to preview the assets used in your site or application.
Dragonfly also features a new remote debugging feature which allows to debug, from a desktop Opera instance, a webpage opened on a handheld or other device. The remote debugging features work with any device that can run Opera, including tablets, phones and TVs.
For a complete overview of the features available on Dragonfly visit this page. Or watch this video.
If you want to give Dragonfly a try, just download a copy of Opera browser and launch from Tools > Advanced > Dragonfly from the menu or press Ctrl+Shift+I. Dragonfly will be downloaded or updated when you use it. You can also access it by right-clicking on any element within a page and selecting “Inspect Element.”
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