Microsoft has released an open source, extensible, platform-agnostic tool for remotely debugging and testing your JavaScript. It takes its name, vorlon.js, from the TV series Babylon 5.

Announcing the tool in a MSDN blog post, its creator David Catuhe explained that Vorlon.js can help developers to remotely load, inspect, test and debug JavaScript code running on any device with a web browser, saying: 

Whether it is a game console, mobile device, or even an IoT- connected refrigerator, you can remotely connect up to 50 devices and execute JavaScript in each or all of them. The idea here is that dev teams can also debug together – each person can write code and the results are visible to all.

Vorlon.js is powered by node.JS, socket.io and is a small web server you can run from your local machine, or install on a server for your team to access, that serves the Vorlon.js dashboard (your command center) and communicates with the remote devices. 

It comes with three core plugins:

• The Console plugin streams console messages from the client to the dashboard that can be used for debugging. Anything logged with console.log(), console.warn() or console.error() appears in the dashboard.
  
  
• The Modernizr plugin shows users the supported browser features as reported by the Modernizr JavaScript library to determine what features are available and could be particularly useful on unusual mobile devices or games consoles.
  
  
• The DOM explorer plugin shows user the dom of the remote webpage, letting them inspect the DOM, with nodes highlighted in the host webpage when clicked, and allowing users to view and modify the CSS properties.

Vorlon.js has been designed to enable developers to extend the dashboard and client application and lets users write and install additional plugins. The community has started creating plugins for the tool, with the first, Object Explorer, allowing users to browse all Javascript variable on their devices.

This demo shows Vorlon.js in action:

Explaining the choice of name from, Catuhe says that in the popular sci-fi show Babylon 5:

"Vorlons are one of the wisest and ancient race of the universe and thus, they are helpful as diplomats between younger races. Their helpfulness is what inspired us."

Comments

Make a Comment or View Existing Comments Using Disqus

or email your comment to: comments@i-programmer.info