Opera Dragonfly 2008 – 2013

Opera's developer tools, built into the browser from Opera 9.5 in 2008. Dragonfly was itself a web application, written in HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and could debug Opera running on another device.

Everything in one window

Dragonfly brought together the tools web developers needed: a DOM inspector with live editing, a CSS inspector showing the cascade, a JavaScript debugger with breakpoints, a network monitor, a resource viewer, a storage inspector and an error console.

Its most unusual feature was remote debugging. Because Opera ran on phones, TVs and game consoles, Dragonfly could connect to Opera Mobile or to a TV across the network and inspect the page there, from the comfort of the desktop.

The code of Dragonfly was published under an open-source license, and new versions were pushed to users from Opera's servers without waiting for a browser update.

Screenshots

Remote debugging

Remote debugging of Opera Mobile.

Color picker

The color picker.

Console HUD

The console overlay.