Debugging with devtools

Note: following guides only apply to node-webkit >= v0.3.0

Open Developer Tools

In order to show the devtools button in toolbar, you should make sure your window shows the toolbar:

{
  "window": {
    "toolbar": true
  }
}

Then you can open devtools from the devtools button (the one on the right of url entry) in the toolbar.

Note: On Windows and Linux, you need to make sure nw.pak is in the same directory with nw(Linux) or nw.exe (Window)

Remote Debugging

You can use the --remote-debugging-port=port command parameter to specify which port the devtools should listen to. For example, by running nw --remote-debugging-port=9222, you can open http://localhost:9222/ to visit the debugger remotely.

Bugs of Developer Tools

Currently not everything of developer tools is working well, bellow are the things that don't work:

• node modules don't shown in script sources

Why the devtools is slow or shows an empty window?

Under certain Windows machines, the devtools loads very slow, it may show a white page at first and needs about 30s to be fully loaded. This might not be a bug of node-webkit, devtools in node-webkit is indeed a remote debugger, it needs to open a local server and transfer data via sockets.

So if you encounter empty window when opening the devtools, please check following things:

• nw.pak should be in the same directory with nw.exe.
• Your proxy settings: on Windows try to disable proxy autodetection in IE.
• Your VPN settings.
• Antivirus or firewall software.
• Check if you boot your Windows VM in VMWare Fusion mode.
• Uninstall VMWare's network configs.