The NativeScript framework uses the Safari Web Inspector and the Chrome DevTools to debug the JavaScript running inside a NativeScript application. However, the Web Inspector and the DevTools are capable of so much more than just plain JavaScript debugging.

I propose that the NativeScript framework debugging experience is extended to match the featureset of web debuggers. This means support for the following:

in 1.3 release

• Profiling JavaScript
• View app contents

in 1.6 release

• Debugging http requests

in 1.7 release

• Start working on the Android parity

unplanned

• Visualizing and editing the visual tree
• Debugging and editing CSS
• Viewing local storage
• Debug application events such as lifetime, timers, scrolling, layout, animations
• Heap profiler

The interface for those and more is already present in the debugger frontends that the NativeScript runtimes rely on. Right now we want to try and extend the Web Inspector infrastructure to enable profiling JavaScript code on iOS. If this strategy proves viable, it would be a good idea to continue along this path and implement other features common to web debuggers.

I believe that work towards this goal will not only improve the debugging experience of NativeScript apps a great deal, but it would also make it easy for developers used to web debuggers to reuse their skills.

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