How do I debug Internet Explorer on Windows Phone 7?

Question

I'm not a Windows Phone developer, and I want as little to do as possible with anything related to Microsoft. Nonetheless, I need to get my mobile web app running properly on Windows Phone 7. What debugging tools are available for the platform? Something like the Webkit developer tools or Firebug would be ideal, either from the phone itself or more likely, remotely debugging from my computer.

If such a thing doesn't exist, I'd settle for being able to read Javascript error messages, and view the contents of variables using alert() or similar. At this point, all I know is that my JS is failing: I don't know where or why, let alone how to fix it.

My dev computer is running OS X, and I'd really like to be able to use these tools from OS X if possible. Assuming that debugging tools exist (which I really hope they do) are they designed for Windows only? If so, does anyone know how well they would work with Wine or similar?

EDIT: I have a physical Windows Phone 7 device, so I can use that. However, alert() doesn't seem to be working, which is why I'm posting this question. Does alert() normally work on the WP7 browser?

Solution 1

You'll likely find the Mobile Perf Bookmarklet to be the easiest all-in-one tool for testing any mobile device.

Works well on the iPhone/iPad/Samsung Galaxy Tab in my testing so far.

Quote:

It displays a menu with links that load other bookmarklets including Firebug Lite, Page Resources, DOM Monster, SpriteMe, CSSess, and Zoompf.

Solution 2

Unless you have a Windows Phone 7 device, you will need to run Windows in BootCamp and install the Windows Phone Developer Tools in order to test in IE on the emulator. I don't know about Whine, but I ran into major problems trying to test in Parallels - so based on my experience, I suggest keeping it as simple as possible.

There is no console in IE on the phone, so you will need to use alert, like you suggested, or just write text to a div on your page as a custom console.

If you really want to code in OS X (which I definitely understand), using a separate machine for testing IE in the WP7 emulator is going to be your best bet.

EDIT: I just tested alert and it did work fine on my Windows Phone. My guess is that a syntax error is preventing it from calling.

Solution 3

Just wanted to add a note to say that full JavaScript debugging is possible now with Windows Phone 8.1 and Visual Studio 2013 Update 2. Full details are available at:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudioalm/archive/2014/04/04/diagnosing-mobile-website-issues-on-windows-phone-8-1-with-visual-studio.aspx

I realize that this doesn't help the versions referenced in the original question (WP7), but I'm hoping this will help people who may find this question and are running a more recent version.

Solution 4

The following may be interesting

Simple IE debug tool for Windows Phone

Supports

• Html traversing
• Html node styles, properties, metrics
• Reading console output
• Executing js on device side from console (including intellisense)
• Dynamic script injection - ability to debug live sites

Not supported

• js breakpoints

View more solutions

Comments

[scunliffe]

Do you have a Windows Phone 7 device? e.g. you just need to debug the traffic/UI... or are you hoping for a Windows Phone Simulator?

[j7nn7k]

Parallels caused problems on my machine, too. I had to use a Win7 Pro machine for WP7 development.

[Jonathan]

Unfortunately this doesn't seem to include any Javascript debugging tools (e.g. a console).

[scunliffe]

@jonathanconway actually unless I'm missing something Firebug Lite getfirebug.com/firebuglite does contain the same logging abilities that Firebug does. :-)

[Aardvark]

windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/html-debugger/…