An entire website is composed of various elements arranged in a visually appealing manner so that it appears to be a single entity. It is crucial to understand how each of these elements interact with one another, and how they are displayed on a page.
If you’re using a Mac or Windows computer, you can inspect an element by right-clicking. By using this feature, you can examine and edit the source code of a website, as well as all its components. All of the media files on the site, including Javascript, HTML, and CSS, can be edited. You not only gain an understanding of how to use a webpage but also gain the ability to customize it within your browser.
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The inspect option is not only beneficial to developers since it is known as a “developer” tool. The tool makes it easy for beginners as well as non-developers to understand how websites work and how the various elements work together. On this post, we’re going to explain how you can inspect elements on the web while browsing on an iPhone.
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Is it possible to inspect web elements directly in Safari?
There is no simple answer to this question.
Like most other mobile browsers, Safari on iOS lacks a native inspect tool to view a web page’s development. As a result of the small display of smartphones, Apple doesn’t provide such a feature. There is no explanation provided by Apple. If the user is editing or finding a webpage’s code, their cursor may have to be placed carefully since the display may be smaller.
A smartphone’s processing power may also be insufficient. Although modern iPhones are powerful enough to run graphics-intensive games, viewing a website’s page information can be challenging since not all websites are created equal. Even though the resources and layers on a website look seamless, when they are examined, they might take a long time to load.
How to inspect Element on iPhone?
Method #01: Using Safari on your Mac
Safari is available for Mac and iPhone, so you can inspect webpages on both devices.
Safari will allow you to access web pages even if you also use macOS. You may need to spend a little more time setting up your site than you anticipate, although it’s relatively simple.Having trouble setting up the software? Don’t worry, we will walk you through the process as simply as possible and show you how easy it is to inspect pages.
How to enable Web Inspector on iOS
Before you can debug web elements on iOS, you must enable Web Inspector. Tap Safari in Settings.
To do this, select ‘Advanced’ under Safari at the bottom.
You will be taken to the next screen after clicking the green toggle next to ‘Web Inspector’.
Setting up the Mac for the first time
When you have enabled Web Inspector for Safari on your iOS device, now is the time to set up Web Inspector for Safari on your Mac. Safari preferences can be edited on a Mac by opening the Safari application, selecting Safari in the menu bar, and choosing ‘Preferences’.
Choose the ‘Advanced’ tab from the top of the window to see the ‘Develop menu in the menu bar’.
On the top of the left-hand menu bar, you should see ‘Develop’.
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Connect your Mac and iPhone using the USB cable included with your iPhone. If your iPhone is connected, click ‘Develop’ on the Mac’s menu bar to see if it appears in the list of devices. You can then select it.
Select ‘Connect via Network’ when you open the iPhone menu next time. Then you won’t require a USB cable to inspect webpages like you did today.
Using your iPhone to view web pages will no longer require a Mac.
Inspect webpages on a Mac using iOS
You can use Safari on iOS to examine page content directly on your Mac by enabling ‘Connect via Network’ in the ‘Develop’ menu. When the iPhone and Mac are connected to a wireless network, debugging web pages is possible.
On your iPhone, open the Safari app and access the webpage you want to examine.
After unlocking your iPhone and opening the selected webpage, you can open the Safari application on your Mac. You can access the iPhone menu by clicking ‘Develop’ on the menu bar.
Hover your mouse over the ‘iPhone’ to see a list of the open web pages. The list can be selected.
When the Mac loads up the selected webpage, a new window will display all available information.
During the inspection, you can see where lines of code are located on the page by looking for the blue areas on your iPhone.
The blue highlight on this page indicates that you’re hovering over the code that’s highlighted on your Mac. The iPhone highlights continue to change as you move from line to line of code.
Method #02: Using Shortcuts on iOS
iOS Shortcuts is a useful app for those without a Mac or who wish to view websites directly from their iPhone. With the Shortcuts app within Safari, users are able to view the source code of a page, edit a website, grab older versions, and more. You will need to add shortcuts individually for full-featured web debugging on iOS since there is no one-stop-shop.
You can easily debug websites directly from iOS by using these shortcuts. They are as follows:
View Source – This shortcut displays the HTML source code of a web page.
Edit Webpage – Changing the design of a webpage on your iPhone will allow you to see how it looks on your device.
Get Images from Page – Saving or examining non-interactive images on a page can be inconvenient. A shortcut which grabs and previews all images from a website at the same time. The screenshot below shows you how you can view every image displayed on the selected webpage.
Wayback Machine – This shortcut, which takes you to Wayback Machine, can be used to view previous versions of a page.
Simply click the relevant links below to add these shortcuts to your iPhone or search Shortcuts > Gallery if you wish to view web pages in another way.
You can select a shortcut from a list of search results displayed on your iPhone.
By tapping the ‘Add Widget’ option at the bottom of the preview screen, you can add a widget.
Safari’s Share sheet will display those shortcuts along with My Shortcuts > All Shortcuts.
Select the ‘Share’ button at the bottom of the Safari window to take a look at the webpage.
Those shortcuts are listed on the Share sheet if you scroll down.
By selecting ‘Edit Web Page’, you can directly edit portions of the webpage.
If you choose any other option, you will be prompted to create a shortcut to the webpage. Select “Permit Once.”.
Method #03: Using third-party apps
If the above results are not satisfactory, third-party applications can be used to examine the elements of a webpage. Safari enables web page inspection, whereas Chrome, Firefox, and Brave do not. Instead, you’ll need an app designed specifically for this task, and finding such apps isn’t always simple.
The App Store has a number of applications that allow you to inspect web elements, but not too many of them are free or have high ratings. Several user reviews recommend installing the Inspect Browser or Gear Browser applications from the App Store to inspect and edit JavaScript, CSS, and HTML elements.
As simple as that, you can inspect an iPhone element.
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