InProcess.DevTools 12.0.1

InProcess.DevTools

An in-process DevTools window for inspecting the visual tree, styles, properties, and events of Avalonia applications directly within your running app.

⚠️ Important Disclaimer

InProcess.DevTools is an unofficial fork of the original Avalonia.Diagnostics project.

• No Official Relation: This project is independent and has no relation to the official Avalonia team or the AvaloniaUI organization.
• No Feature Parity: This fork does not aim to maintain feature parity with the original Avalonia.Diagnostics or any newer official Avalonia debugging tools (like the standalone DevTools).
• Maintenance: It is provided "as-is" to support developers who specifically prefer the legacy in-process debugging experience in modern Avalonia versions (12+).

About This Fork

The original Avalonia.Diagnostics package was deprecated and removed from recent Avalonia versions in favor of standalone developer tools. This fork revives and maintains the in-process experience for developers who:

• Prefer an integrated debugging window over a separate application.
• Want to maintain legacy codebases that depend on the AttachDevTools() extension methods.
• Require lightweight, in-process inspection during development.

Installation

dotnet add package InProcess.DevTools

Usage & Samples

1. Basic Attachment (Window)

Attach to a specific window. By default, it opens when you press F12.

using Avalonia;
using Avalonia.Controls;

public partial class MainWindow : Window
{
    public MainWindow()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
#if DEBUG
        this.AttachDevTools(); 
#endif
    }
}

2. Global Attachment (Application)

Attach to the entire application. This is often the preferred way as it works across all windows.

public partial class App : Application
{
    public override void OnFrameworkInitializationCompleted()
    {
        // ... usual initialization ...
        base.OnFrameworkInitializationCompleted();

#if DEBUG
        this.AttachDevTools();
#endif
    }
}

3. Custom Hotkey

Change the key gesture used to trigger the DevTools window.

using Avalonia.Input;

// Opens with Ctrl+F11
this.AttachDevTools(new KeyGesture(Key.F11, KeyModifiers.Control));

4. Advanced Options

Configure startup behavior, monitor selection, and UI features.

using InProcess.DevTools;

this.AttachDevTools(new DevToolsOptions()
{
    StartupScreenIndex = 0,
    ShowAsChildWindow = true,
    Size = new Avalonia.Size(1024, 768)
});

Sample Project

A complete working example is included in this repository under samples/InProcess.DevTools.Sample.

To run the sample:

1. Clone this repository.
2. Open a terminal in the root folder.
3. Run the following command:

   dotnet run --project samples/InProcess.DevTools.Sample/InProcess.DevTools.Sample.csproj
   

Features

• ✅ Visual Tree Inspector: Explore the logical and visual tree of your application.
• ✅ Style Debugger: Inspect applied styles and troubleshoot selectors.
• ✅ Property Editor: View and edit control properties in real-time.
• ✅ Event Logger: Monitor and filter routed events as they fire.
• ✅ Layout Explorer: Visualize control bounds, margins, and padding.
• ✅ Screenshot Tool: Capture snapshots of controls or windows.

Backward Compatibility

The public extension methods are compatible with the original Avalonia.Diagnostics. Most existing code using this.AttachDevTools() will work by simply replacing the NuGet package and updating namespaces where internal types were used.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

Looking for the official tools? Visit the Avalonia Documentation for the standalone Developer Tools.