What's New in DevTools (Chrome 118)

Published on Friday, September 15, 2023

Technical Writer, Google Chrome

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New section for custom properties in Elements > Styles

The Elements panel now supports the @property CSS at-rule. It lets you define CSS custom properties explicitly and register them in a stylesheet without running any JavaScript.

To inspect your registered custom properties, in Elements > Styles, hover over the property name and see its descriptors in a tooltip. In the tooltip, click the link to view the registered property in the collapsible @property section.

Chromium issues: 1471102, 1471103, 1471105.

More local overrides improvements

Continuing the stream of improvements in the previous version, local overrides now do the following:

In Sources > Page, when you right-click a source-mapped file and select Override content, DevTools will show a dialog that takes you to the original source instead. Contents of source-mapped files can't be overridden.
The Network panel gets a new Has overrides column and a corresponding has-overrides:[content|headers|yes|no] filter. To see the Has overrides column, right-click the table header and select it.
In Sources > Overrides, the Delete all overrides menu option has been replaced with the Delete option with precise behavior.

The previous Delete all overrides was confusing because it deleted only the overrides active in the current session, marked by the purple dot icon.

The new Delete option, first shows a warning message and prompts confirmation, then deletes the folder you clicked with all its contents.

To bring back the previous option, check Enable "Delete all overrides temporarily" in Settings > Experiments.

Chromium issues: 1472952, 1416338, 1472580, 1473681 1475668.

Enhanced search

Search results now show an entry per all the matches it found in a line of code. Previously, it showed only the first match per line of code. The new behavior is especially useful when you search across minified files. When you click a search result, it opens the file in the editor and now scrolls the match into view not only vertically but also horizontally.

The before and after making search show all the matches per line.

Additionally, Search got a speed boost. See the before (left) and after (right) comparison in the next video.

Finally, Search now supports ignore listing and won't show you results from ignored files.

Chromium issues: 1468875, 1472019.

Improved Sources panel

Streamlined workspace in the Sources panel

The workspace feature in the Sources panel is new streamlined:

Consistent naming. Most notably, the Sources > Filesystem pane was renamed into Workspace. Various UI texts in this pane are now clearer and free of redundancy.
Improved setup. See better cues for dragging and dropping folders or click a link to select a folder.

Sources > Workspace lets you sync changes you make in DevTools directly to your source files.

See the new setup and workflow in action:

Chromium issues: 1473771, 1473880, 1473963, 1474686, 1474687.

Reorder panes in Sources

You can now reorder panes on the left side of the Sources panel by dragging and dropping, similar to how you can reorder other panels, tabs, and panes.

Chromium issues: 1473758.

Syntax highlighting and pretty-printing for more script types

The Sources panel can now:

Pretty-print inline JavaScript within the following script types: module, importmap, speculationrules.
Highlight the syntax of importmap and speculationrules script types, both of which hold JSON.

Before and after pretty-printing and syntax highlighting of speculation rules script type.

For more information on speculation rules, see Prerender pages in Chrome for instant page navigations.

Chromium issue: 1473875.

Emulate prefers-reduced-transparency media feature

Chrome 118 now supports the prefers-reduced-transparency media feature. This feature lets developers adapt web content to user-selected preference for reduced transparency in the OS, such as the Reduce transparency setting on macOS.

To emulate this media feature, open the Rendering tab and scroll down to it.

Chromium issue: 1424879.

Lighthouse 11

The Lighthouse panel now runs Lighthouse 11. Most notably, this version removes legacy navigation and adds new accessibility audits and changes how the accessibility category is scored.

See also the full list of changes. To learn the basics of using the Lighthouse panel in DevTools, see Lighthouse: Optimize website speed.

Chromium issue: 772558.

Accessibility improvements

DevTools now supports more navigation keystrokes:

CSS Overview: Use the up and down arrows to navigate sections in the left sidebar.
Memory: In the left sidebar, focus the Save button next to snapshots with Tab and press Enter to select folder.

Additionally, several screen reader announcement issues have been fixed.

Chromium issues: 1470401, 1471301, 1474108, 1468631.

Miscellaneous highlights

These are some noteworthy fixes and improvements in this release:

Network: New icons for popular resources types: media, wasm, websocket, manifest, fetch/xhr, json (1466298).
Color updates to material 3 colors in many UI elements, most notably in the Elements and Performance panels (1456690, 1472243).
Issues now preserves cookie issues across navigations (1466601).
Various Application > Preloading improvements, most notably sortable grids and revised rule set details (1410709).
Various improvements of the command editor in Protocol monitor, most notably warnings on wrong input, editing a sent command, editor for object parameters without predefined keys, support for enums undefined by references, objects without type reference, filter commands by substring matches, and more (1448050).
Performance flame chart gets a border around the total box on the pie chart (1470147).
Sources now doesn't treat dashes as word characters in CSS (1471354).
Autocomplete now always sorts CSS-wise keywords at the end.
RegEx filters now support spaces (1346936).
Elements fixed media query feature detection (1472693).

Download the preview channels

Consider using the Chrome Canary, Dev or Beta as your default development browser. These preview channels give you access to the latest DevTools features, test cutting-edge web platform APIs, and find issues on your site before your users do!

Getting in touch with the Chrome DevTools team

Use the following options to discuss the new features and changes in the post, or anything else related to DevTools.

Submit a suggestion or feedback to us via crbug.com.
Report a DevTools issue using the More options > Help > Report a DevTools issues in DevTools.
Tweet at @ChromeDevTools.
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