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Debug a WebView control in a UWP App

  • Article

Applies to: yesVisual Studio noVisual Studio for Mac

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

To inspect and debug WebView controls in a Windows Runtime app, you can configure Visual Studio to attach the script debugger when you start your app. You have two ways to interact with WebView controls using the debugger:

  • Open the DOM Explorer for a WebView instance, and inspect DOM elements, investigate CSS style issues, and test dynamically rendered changes to styles.

  • Select the webpage or iFrame displayed in the WebView instance as a target in the JavaScript Console window, and then interact with the webpage using console commands. The console provides access to the current script execution context.

Attach the debugger (C#, Visual Basic, C++)

  1. In Visual Studio, add a WebView control to your Windows Runtime app.

  2. In Solution Explorer, open the properties for the project by choosing Properties from the shortcut menu for the project.

  3. Choose Debug. In the Application process list, choose Script.

    Attach the script debugger

  4. (Optional) For non-Express versions of Visual Studio, disable just-in-time (JIT) debugging by choosing Tools > Options > Debugging > Just-In-Time, and then disabling JIT debugging for Script.

    Note

    By disabling JIT debugging, you can hide dialog boxes for unhandled exceptions that occur on some webpages. In Visual Studio Express, JIT debugging is always disabled.

  5. Press F5 to start debugging.

Use the DOM Explorer to inspect and debug a WebView control

  1. (C#, Visual Basic, C++) Attach the script debugger to your app. See the first section for instructions.

  2. If you haven't already, add a WebView control to your app and press F5 to start debugging.

  3. Navigate to the page containing the Webview control(s).

  4. Open the DOM Explorer window for the WebView control by choosing Debug, Windows, DOM Explorer, and then choose the URL of the WebView that you want to inspect.

    Opening the DOM Explorer

    The DOM Explorer associated with the WebView appears as a new tab in Visual Studio.

  5. View and modify live DOM elements and CSS styles as described in Debug CSS styles using DOM Explorer.

Use the JavaScript Console window to inspect and debug a WebView control

  1. (C#, Visual Basic, C++) Attach the script debugger to your app. See the first section for instructions.

  2. If you haven't already, add a WebView control to your app and press F5 to start debugging.

  3. Open the JavaScript Console window for the WebView control by choosing Debug, Windows, JavaScript Console.

    The JavaScript Console window appears.

  4. Navigate to the page containing the Webview control(s).

  5. In the Console window, select the webpage or an iFrame displayed by the WebView control in the Target list.

    Target selection in the JavaScript console window

    Note

    Using the console, you can interact with a single WebView, iFrame, share contract, or web worker at a time. Each element requires a separate instance of the web platform host (WWAHost.exe). You can interact with one host at a time.

  6. View and modify variables in your app or use console commands, as described in QuickStart: Debug JavaScript and JavaScript Console commands.

See also