Hidden Experimental Features in Chrome Devtools

Written by theroccob | Published 2017/04/06
Tech Story Tags: javascript | web-development | chrome | chrome-dev-tools | chrome-developer-tools

TLDRvia the TL;DR App

If you use Google Chrome Devtools with any regularity like I do, you likely know how to look at experimental features. But did you know there’s a way to enable super “double secret probation” hidden experimental features?

tl;dr; Go to the experiments panel in Devtools options and hit <shift> six times.

The normal experiments panel is not enabled by default, so keep reading if you want to learn how to enable that.

Here’s the normal view of Chrome experiments:

Normal View

Enabling Experiments

Need to enable and find the experiments panel?

Go to chrome://flags in the address bar and enable “Developer Tools Experiments”

Then in Devtools pull down the options menu and select settings (or hit F1).

You’ll see the new experiments panel:

Super Secret features

In that panel, hit <shift> 6 times, and you’ll see the super experimental features:

Shhhhhweet!!!!

I haven’t played around with many of these, but I did try enabling the terminal, and it didn’t work! So use this stuff at your own risk — these are probably features in active development.

Maybe it works on Linux!?

For your reference, I’m using chrome canary: (Version 59.0.3064.0 canary (64-bit)). Who knows if this stuff will change once the cat gets out of the bag.

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Published by HackerNoon on 2017/04/06