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  Vue Devtools, available in popular browsers like Chrome and Firefox, is a powerful debugging tool that can help demystify the structure of our Vue applications.
Install Vue Devtools for Chrome
- Install
 - You may also need to click the 3 dots at the top right of the screen in Chrome, then More Tools > Extensions. Then click Vue.js devtools > Details > then make sure “Allow Access to file URLS” is toggled on.
 - You may need to refresh and/or restart your browser
 - Make sure you’re using the unminified version of Vue.js
 
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                      [MUSIC]
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                      You may have noticed,
as we've been working with Vue,
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                      a couple of messages here in the console.
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                      The first one says,
download the Vue Devtools extension for
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                      a better development experience.
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                      We're gonna go ahead and do that.
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                      Vue Devtools is a browser extension
that will let us take a peek
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                      at what's going on inside
of our Vue instances.
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                      With it, we can better see
the structure of our apps and
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                      observe changes to our data.
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                      Vue Devtools can be extremely helpful for
debugging, so let's take a look.
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                      This link will take us to a GitHub repo
with a link to where we can install
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                      Vue Devtools, but let's just
start by Googling vuejs devtools.
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                      If you're using Firefox,
you can find the installation
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                      link at the Vue Devtools GitHub repo,
or in the Teacher's Notes.
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                      One of the first results should be a link
to the Vue.js Devtools extension in
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                      the Chrome web store.
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                      Let's click on that, and
then click Add to Chrome to install.
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                      Add extension.
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                      Once you've installed, the Vue logo should
appear at the top right of your browser.
                      1:10
                    
                    
                      To use Vue Devtools, you may have to
click the three dots at the top right
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                      of the screen,
then More Tools and Extensions.
                      1:23
                    
                    
                      Then click Details under Vue.js Devtools,
and
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                      make sure that allow access
to file URLs is toggled on.
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                      This allows us to use Vue Devtools
with local files without a server.
                      1:37
                    
                    
                      You may also need to restart your browser,
and make sure you're using the unminified
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                      of Vue.js, which you should be if
you've been following with me.
                      1:46
                    
                    
                      You won't be able to use Vue Devtools
if you use the minified version,
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                      it won't work.
                      1:54
                    
                    
                      All right, now that we have this set up,
let's get a feel for how it works.
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                      To follow along,
you can open up the book detail example
                      2:00
                    
                    
                      from the last part of
the course in Chrome.
                      2:04
                    
                    
                      Or you can download the project
files from the link on this page and
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                      open up the index.html file from
the folder called book detail.
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                      I'm going to change the orientation
of Chrome Devtools so
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                      that it is docked along the bottom here.
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                      So now let's inspect
the book detail template.
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                      On the left,
we're shown a tree of our Vue components.
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                      Right now we have only one component,
our root component,
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                      which is the one Vue instance that
we currently have in our project.
                      2:41
                    
                    
                      If we had a complex application
with many nested Vue instances,
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                      we'd be shown a helpful tree
on this side of the window.
                      2:48
                    
                    
                      And it would allow us to
inspect each Vue instance.
                      2:52
                    
                    
                      So if you click on the root instance,
you can see on the right we have a view of
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                      all the data associated
with this Vue instance.
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                      So we can use this to examine and
change our data on the fly.
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                      For example, if I click on the book title,
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                      you can actually see the show detail
property toggling from true to false.
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                      And if I click on the showDetail property,
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                      I can use this check box to
change the boolean manually.
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                      I can also change any of this text.
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                      I can even change the type of data.
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                      For example,
I could change this to a number.
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                      Note that none of this data persists.
                      3:43
                    
                    
                      Just like when we make
changes in the console or
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                      elements tab of Chrome Devtools,
everything resets when the page reloads.
                      3:48
                    
                    
                      We'll use Vue Devtools to get a closer
view into our apps throughout the course.
                      3:53
                    
                    
                      While we're here, let's click on console.
                      3:58
                    
                    
                      You'll see we have a couple of
messages in the console from Vue.
                      4:01
                    
                    
                      There's nothing here that we need
to worry about at the moment.
                      4:04
                    
                    
                      But keep your eye on the console as
you're developing Vue applications.
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                      Vue Devtools gives us access
to enhanced error warnings,
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                      which can be quite helpful for debugging.
                      4:13
                    
              
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