As an experienced webmaster with over 15 years optimizing websites, I‘m thrilled to see more DIY users embracing powerful browser tools like inspect element. It unlocks so many options for customizing your WordPress site.
Let me walk you through how to master inspect element, from basic editing to advanced debugging. With some practice, you‘ll gain valuable visibility into your WordPress site and be able to visualize changes with ease.
Contents
What Exactly is Inspect Element?
Inspect element allows you to view and directly edit the underlying code behind any webpage. You can access it through your browser‘s developer tools.
The most common way to open inspect element is to right-click anywhere on a page and choose "Inspect" or "Inspect Element". Keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+Shift+I (Windows/Linux) or Command+Option+I (Mac) also work.
When enabled, your browser will split into two panels:
- The rendered page you normally see
- The HTML, CSS, and JavaScript powering it
As you hover over elements in the code panel, the corresponding spots on the page will be highlighted. This helps you map how the code translates into visible output.
Inspect element is supported in all major browsers today, including:
- Chrome (90% market share)
- Firefox (3% market share)
- Safari (15% market share on mobile)
- Edge (4% market share)
So you can utilize it on virtually any device. Personally, I find Chrome‘s inspect tools to be the most full-featured.
Customizing Your WordPress Site‘s Design
For DIY WordPress users, one of the most valuable uses of inspect element is quickly visualizing changes to your site‘s design and styles.
You can dynamically edit CSS and HTML and instantly see the rendered output live in your browser. This allows you to experiment with tweaks before touching actual code.
Some examples of common customizations you can test drive:
Colors – Change the hex values of colors to preview alternate color schemes.
Font Styles – Adjust properties like font-family, font-size, font-weight, etc.
Spacing – Modify margins, padding, and positioning of elements.
Backgrounds – Swap background images, colors, and other bg properties.
Borders – Tweak border colors, widths, styles, and radii.
Dimensions – Resize elements by changing width, height, and display values.
Text Content – Quickly edit any text by double clicking on elements.
The changes you make in inspect element are temporary and will disappear if you refresh the page. But being able to visually test changes is invaluable.
Once you identify modifications you like, you can make them permanent by editing your WordPress theme‘s template files and stylesheet.
Diagnosing Tricky Layout Issues
Another benefit of inspect element is debugging layout or styling issues on your site.
Maybe a homepage element is overflowing and looks broken only on mobile? Or a spacing problem is causing things to overlap?
You can utilize inspect element to diagnose problems like these:
View computed CSS – See all the css being applied to any element to understand what rules are impacting it. Any overridden properties will be highlighted in red.
Disable CSS – Check the box to disable all styles and see the underlying HTML structure without CSS. This can reveal problems with unstyled markup flow.
Test responsiveness – Chrome lets you emulate various mobile devices to replicate responsive issues.
Identify bad selectors – Inspect incorrect elements being targeted by CSS to fix specificity problems.
Measure dimensions – Use the measuring tools to diagnose elements exceeding their containers.
Audit padding/margins – Inspect spacing and layout metrics of everything on the page.
Don‘t waste hours guessing about CSS issues! Inspect element makes it easy to visually inspect and tweak until you solve the problem.
My Top Pro Tips and Tricks
With over 15 years of webmaster experience, inspect element has become an indispensible part of my toolkit.
Here are some of my top professional tips for supercharging your skills:
Use the magnifying glass – Click this icon in Chrome dev tools to enlarge the inspected element, helping focus on key areas.
Try different units – When tweaking values, use units like vh, vw, and % to visualize responsive changes.
Utilize the box model – Inspect padding, borders, and margins step-by-step using the box model diagram.
Toggle pseudo selectors – View styles for things like :hover and :focus states by toggling icons in the CSS panel.
Use the color picker – Easily sample colors from your page and paste hex or RGB values into your CSS edits.
Save snippets – Right click on any HTML or CSS in the inspect panel and choose "Store as Global Snippet" to save frequently used code.
Export findings – Use right click to copy code snippets or save screenshots of inspect element to share bugs/findings with others.
Don‘t be afraid to really dig in and experiment. The more you work with inspect element, the more adept you‘ll become. It‘s one of the best tools for any DIY WordPress user!
Advanced Debugging with Browser Console
In addition to HTML and CSS editing, inspect element also provides a JavaScript console for advanced debugging.
This panel outputs errors and warnings that may be preventing proper site functioning. For example:
- JavaScript runtime errors
- Network request failures
- Browser compatibility issues
- PHP notices/warnings from WordPress
The console gives you visibility into problems that break functionality or cause performance issues.
Some key things to check here:
-
404 errors – look for failed requests for assets like images or stylesheets.
-
JS errors – fix syntax errors, check dependencies are loading properly.
-
Mixed content warnings – secure HTTPS pages trying to load HTTP resources.
-
PHP notices – common with outdated, incompatible plugins.
Don‘t ignore errors in the console – they offer clues to fix problems!
Limitations to Keep in Mind
While inspect element is incredibly useful, some limitations to be aware of:
Temporary changes – Any edits are not saved permanently. Refreshing the page will revert all changes.
Local browser only – No one else will see your tweaks. They exist only in your browser.
Basic editing – Inspect element is great for tweaking existing code, but can‘t add new files/functionality.
No server interaction – You can‘t debug server-side issues in WordPress, only front-end code.
So utilize inspect element as a companion to real development tools when making permanent changes. But use it liberally to test changes and squash bugs!
Conclusion
I hope this guide has shown you how powerful inspect element can be for customizing and debugging your DIY WordPress site.
The ability to visually test changes before touching code is invaluable. Take your time, experiment freely, and let inspect element enhance your overall WordPress development workflow.
You now have an expert-level grasp of dev tools. Feel free to reach out if you have any other questions!
