Chrome developer tools: View Console and Sources views in separate views/vertically tiled?

Himanshu P picture Himanshu P · May 14, 2013 · Viewed 83.3k times · Source

Chrome developer tools: Is there a way to view the Console tab and the Sources tab in separate views? I often want to look at both of these simultaneously.

Pressing Esc when on the Sources tab will let me see a small view of the Console at the bottom. But I'd like a larger view of the both at the same time. Is this possible?

If not, is this something that a chrome extension might be able to do?

Edit:

Clarification - I know how to undock the dev tools window (that's my default setup). Just being greedy I guess and wondering if I can further split Sources and Console into separate undocked windows (or at the very least, have their views splits vertically on the same window, instead of horizontally as pressing Esc does)

Answer

Rob W picture Rob W · May 14, 2013

Vertical split

You can undock the developer tools (by clicking on the icon in the bottom-left corner), which moves it to a new window. Then press Esc to open the console.

Both the window and the "small console" can be resized to meet your needs.

screenshot of vertically split devtools

Horizontal split

If you prefer to have the console at the right instead of the bottom, customize the developer tools by editing path/to/profile/Default/User StyleSheets/Custom.css, and add the following rules:

EDIT: Support for Custom.css has been removed, but it's still possible to change the styles of the developer tools using a new API, chrome.devtools.panels.applyStyleSheet method (sample code).

/* If drawer has been expanded at least once AND it's still expanded */
#-webkit-web-inspector #main[style*="bottom"]:not([style*="bottom: 0"]) {
    width: 50%;
    bottom: 0 !important;
}

#-webkit-web-inspector #drawer[style*="height"]:not([style*="height: 0"]) {
    /* The position of the drawer */
    left: 50% !important;
    /* styles to position the #drawer correctly */
    top: 26px !important;
    height: auto !important;
    z-index: 1;
    border-left: 1px solid rgb(64%, 64%, 64%);
}
#-webkit-web-inspector.show-toolbar-icons #drawer[style*="height"]:not([style*="height: 0"]) {
    top: 56px !important;
}

The result looks like this:

screenshot of horizontally split devtools