React is a brilliant frontend development framework. It also assists in building mobile apps for a variety of platforms. React was a turning point for IT companies in the United States and around the world, and when Facebook announced its launch, developers across the world were thrilled. This article is the ultimate guide to React Developer Tools. Continue reading to learn the basics of React Developer Tools.
What is React Developer Tools?
React Developer Tools help developers smoothly create interactive UIs. It is capable of reconciling changes to the DOM in a performant way.
The React Developer Tools is constantly being worked on, with new features added to it regularly. It is an important tool that is useful in the inspection of a React application.
When you’re debugging a React app, it is possible to use step-through, breakpoints, and logging. But it can become quite difficult for developers. A lot more if you have to debug an application that you haven’t seen before. You can overcome some of these challenges by installing React Developer Tools.
Features of Reach Developer Tools
Installing React Developer Tools
Developers can install React Developer Tools on the browser they’re using to run the React application. A popular example is the Chrome React Developer Tools extension. It is available in the Chrome Web Store. Once you’ve installed it, there will be two tabs will available for you to use:
- Components
- Profiler
Components Tab
The Components tab displays the root React components that were rendered on the page as well as the subcomponents that they rendered. By selecting one of the components in the tree, you can inspect and edit its current state and props in the panel. It allows you to inspect the currently selected component, as well as the component that created it, the component that created the second component, and so on.
To select an element in the React tree, simply switch over to the React tab while inspecting a React element.
Profiler Tab
The Profiler tab was introduced in 2018 and is an incredibly powerful feature. React Devtools has a profiling feature with which you can see a summary of how your application re-renders. You’ll have to “record” a set of interactions just like the regular JavaScript profiler.
Once you start the recording, React Devtools will automatically gather the performance information every time your application renders. During this process, you can keep using the app as you normally would. Click the ‘stop’ button when you’re done with profiling. Now you will be able to see a visualization of each re-render along with color-coded flame graphs and accurate timing information.