Top tools for debugging AJAX applications ?

AJAX is not a programming language. It is a technique for creating web pages with faster, interactive properties. For this AJAX uses many languages and techniques like – HTML, XML, CSS, and JavaScript. AJAX is known as Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. AJAX uses XHTML for the structure of the web pages, CSS for designing the web pages, and for dynamic user interface and user interactive uses JavaScript.

The most advantage of this feature is that sending the request and getting information asynchronously means we generally, fill out the form and then hit the submit button. After this, we redirect to the new page with the information get by the server. But in AJAX there is a lot of difference because in AJAX when we submit the form or make any request then JavaScript sends the request to the server and then it updates the result in the current screen there is no redirecting the user would happen.

The following things happened in the AJAX application:

• When an event occurs in the browser, then an XMLHttpRequest object is created by JavaScript.
• Then after this, the XMLHttpRequest object is sent a request to the server.
• The server process the XMLHttpRequest.
• The server sends the response to the web page
• JavaScript reads the response and updates the necessary changes in the web pages.

AJAX APPLICATION REQUEST PROCESS

Tools For Debugging AJAX Applications: Before discussing the debugging tools for the AJAX applications, we have to look at the topic. What is debugging? As we see from the name when we write any program there is some result that doesn’t come as we expected. So, for this reason, we have to find such types of mistakes that we could do. So, we can say that for finding mistakes in an application for getting the desired output we do some methods or approaches known as Debugging. An AJAX application works on both the client and the server side. That’s for debugging in these types of applications we have to debug from both sides. So, for this reason, we have to use some tools that would help me for doing the debugging in the AJAX applications. 

Some of them are described below:

1. Firebug for Firefox
2. Debugging Features in ASP.NET AJAX
3. Web Development Helper( for Internet Explorer)
4. Google Chrome Dev Tools
5. Edge Developer Tools
6. Raygun Error Monitoring
7. Debugging in VS Code

1. Firebug for Firefox: For debugging the AJAX applications we use the Firebug tool or extension in the Firefox browser. when we download and install it with our firefox browser its features work with this browser fluently and Firebug provides various features for debugging the  AJAX application. When we launch the firebug in the browser then it gathers all the information related to the current page. From this, we can easily manipulate the objects and directly write them. And It also provides detailed error messages with JavaScript. With the firebug, we can also see the detailed list of all HTTP requests sent to the server by the application.

2. Debugging Features in ASP.NET AJAX: ASP.NET AJAX also comes with built-in features that work well with the techniques for debugging the applications. When we want to access these features of the AJAX, we have to run the application in debug mode. From this AJAX automatically select the library that is used to debug the applications. In the debugging mode, the Sys. Debug class provides features/methods for debugging the applications. Many methods interact with the JavaScript output console.

3. Web Development Helper For Internet Explorer: Debugging with Internet Explorer is quite difficult compared to other tools. In this tool, we used some plugins for debugging but here not all the features offered required tools for debugging tool modern web pages. Web Development Helper not only provides features for accessing the information of the current web pages but also provides features like ViewState and tracing the information. We can also see the whole HTTP request and console for the JavaScript and we also capture the screenshot on the debugging tool.

4. Google Chrome Dev Tools: Like the firefox browser Google chrome also provide debugging tools that are very helpful for modern developers.  For debugging the AJAX application or we can say that the Javascript applications, we have to just run the page that is being debugged.  We have to just right-click on the JS page and go to inspect option, from this we can see our JS, HTML, and CSS code. We can debug it with many tools provided by Google Chrome Dev Tools. 

5. Edge Developer Tools: Microsoft edge also provides the debugging of the JS applications by just clicking the three dots available top right corner, then select the more tools option, and then clicking on the developer tools. We can also do like the Google Chrome Dev Tools by just pressing the shortcut key Control-Shift-C. Then from performing the above task we are able to see the HTML, JS, and CSS code from which we can analyze the application performance and user interface.

6. Raygun Error Monitoring: Raygun Error Monitoring is also known as crash monitoring. It is a cloud-based service that is used to monitor the performance of the web pages continuously and also provide the alert feature and also spot errors in the code, whether the page is live or not. It is activated when the client just started the snippet on the current page. It is not for free, Raygun charges for using its service.

7. Debugging With VS(Visual Studio) Code: VS code is IDE built by Microsoft, and it is free for the developer. From VS code we can build and debug modern web and cloud-based applications. We have many built-in features for debugging applications. VS code is very helpful for modern developers for debugging, it has built-in debugger features for edge and chrome. We can start the debug option in VS code by pressing the Open Link command and then choosing to open the JavaScript debug terminal. From this, we are able to debug our JS applications. And we can also use the launch config to start our browser with our application.