Exciting news for HTML5 developers on Windows Phone 8: weinre (WEb INspector REmote) support has arrived! Weinre is a remote DOM inspector tool that web app developers can use to quickly solve the challenges of testing and debugging HTML5 content on mobile devices. Now, thanks to Microsoft Open Technologies and the contributing community, you can use the latest version of weinre to ensure that your mobile website or web app works great with Internet Explorer 10 on Windows Phone 8.
Using weinre, a developer can inspect HTML content and modify the style and layout of a page in real time on a Windows Phone 8 device or emulator. You can also see errors as they occur in the weinre JavaScript console.
Demo
To see weinre in action, check out the demo video of an HTML5-based app being debugged on Windows Phone 8:
Getting started with weinre on Internet Explorer 10 and Windows Phone 8
Getting set up with weinre takes only a few minutes! Just follow the steps in Olivier Bloch's detailed article Now on IE and Firefox: Debug your mobile HTML5 page remotely with weinre (WEb INspector REmote).
How was this done?
Microsoft Open Technologies worked with the weinre community to remove weinre’s dependencies on WebKit. This opens the door for developers to debug their webpages on other standards-based browsers, including Internet Explorer 10. If you are curious about how you can adapt your WebKit-optimized site to support Internet Explorer 10 and make your site more compliant to the HTML5 standards, check out Charles Morris’s article on Adapting your WebKit-optimized site for Internet Explorer 10.
PhoneGap Challenge
If you already are using weinre on your other PhoneGap apps, join the PhoneGap challenge! It’s a great chance to launch your app on the Windows Phone 8 platform, use weinre, and you might win some prizes.
We would love to hear your feedback after you use weinre with Internet Explorer 10 on Windows Phone 8. Please comment below to let us know what you think.