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I'm trying to inspect my standalone Xul app, but the DOM Inspector's page talks just about documents loaded on the browser.

How can I inspect my standalone Xul app?

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Have you had a look at File -> Inspect Chrome Document ? One of the entries in this list might be yours. –  Felix Kling Jan 10 '11 at 15:33
@Felix Kling I've looked, none of them is mine. By the way, I'm starting it from Firefox tools menu, I don't know if this makes it lists only Firefox pages, but I believe not.. –  Tom Brito Jan 10 '11 at 15:37
Do you start your application from Firefox? If not you cannot inspect it this way anyway. I can only say that every window you open from Firefox should be listed there. –  Felix Kling Jan 10 '11 at 15:39
@Felix Kling my application is a standalone app, it has nothing to do with firefox. I'm just using the Fifefox addon becouse it's description says that it can be used to inspect both Firefox pages and Xul applications. –  Tom Brito Jan 10 '11 at 15:54
@Tom Brito: Ah I see now.... sorry I can't help you with that. –  Felix Kling Jan 10 '11 at 15:55

1 Answer 1

up vote 10 down vote accepted

DOM Inspector can only inspect documents from its host application—the application it's extending (and then only the profile it's installed into). You need to install DOM Inspector on your XULRunner app if you want to be able to inspect it.

There's some documentation about how to get DOM Inspector installed on XULRunner apps,[1] and it looks correct from a quick look, but it's way overkill, especially if you already have the Add-on Manager enabled in your app.

If the Add-ons Manager isn't already enabled, add these two lines to your your application.ini:


I'm assuming since you are developing a XULRunner app, you already have the Error Console accessible from your app. Open it up and paste this there to open the Add-ons Manager:


From there, click "Install…" and find the DOM Inspector XPI on your system to install it to your XULRunner app's current profile.

You should now be able to launch DOM Inspector from the command line with "-inspector" switch, but you probably want a way to open it from within your app. Include the DOM Inspector launcher hooks by adding the following line to your app's XUL:

<script type="application/javascript"

Now add a XUL button, menuitem, et cetera with the attribute


Or you can make that


This will make DOM Inspector default to inspecting the app's document.

[1]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XULRunner_tips#DOM_Inspector "XULRunner tips". MDC.

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In some instances, it may also be helpful to edit prefs.js. –  SmileAndNod Dec 5 '11 at 13:38

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