Google on Monday detailed recent improvements to its Google Chrome developer tools, which include the addition of a heap profiler for JavaScript and a timeline tab offering overviews of where time is spent when loading a Web application.
The tools were introduced in the Google Chrome developer channel. Chrome is the company’s entrant in the browser market.
“[During] the last few weeks, Google Chrome’s developer tools have become much more useful,” said Pavel Feldman, a software engineer at Google, and Anders Sandholm, a Google product manager, in a blog post.
“With the heap profiler you can now take a snapshot of the JavaScript heap at any point in time. A heap snapshot helps you understand memory usage and by comparing snapshots you can also follow memory usage over time. You will find the heap profiler in the profiles tab along with the sample-based CPU profiler,” the officials said.
“The new timeline view gives you a complete overview of where time is spent when loading a Web app. All events — ranging from loading resources over parsing and executing JavaScript to calculating styles and repainting — are plotted on a timeline,” they said.
The company’s tools for Chrome are partially based on the WebKit browser engine. Google also has put together a Web site focused on Chrome developer tools, featuring tutorials and videos. The company also has improved the Web Inspector tool for testing of Chrome Web sites. Improvements were made in areas such as editing and CSS accommodations.
