I use Google Chrome developer tools and I am constantly inspecting one element against another back and forth to find out what may be causing a particular styling issue.
It would be nice to compare the differences in style between element 1 and element 2.
Can this be done with chrome currently or via some workaround? Is there a tool out there that can do what I am looking for?
Current example of style difference is that I have an inline H4
next to a A
where the A
is appearing higher in vertical alignment. I am not seeking a solution in this question as I will sort it out.
Update: As a result of this discussion, the "CSS Diff" Chrome extension was created.
https://i.stack.imgur.com/YHKum.png
Great question and cool idea for extension!
Proof of concept
As a proof of concept, we can do a small trick here and avoid creating extension. Chrome keeps elements you select via 'inspect element' button in variables. Last selected element in $0
, one before that in $1
etc. Basing on this, I've created a small snippet that compares last two inspected elements:
(function(a,b){
var aComputed = getComputedStyle(a);
var bComputed = getComputedStyle(b);
console.log('------------------------------------------');
console.log('You are comparing: ');
console.log('A:', a);
console.log('B:', b);
console.log('------------------------------------------');
for(var aname in aComputed) {
var avalue = aComputed[aname];
var bvalue = bComputed[aname];
if( aname === 'length' || aname === 'cssText' || typeof avalue === "function" ) {
continue;
}
if( avalue !== bvalue ) {
console.warn('Attribute ' + aname + ' differs: ');
console.log('A:', avalue);
console.log('B:', bvalue);
}
}
console.log('------------------------------------------');
})($0,$1);
How to use it?
Inspect two elements you want to compare, one after another, and paste the code above to console.
Result
https://i.stack.imgur.com/0KoEK.png
Success story sharing