Inline-console NPM

inline-console

An excellent inline console for browsers as React component based on jquery.terminal.

npm downloads total npm version npm license

Very useful inline browser console which gives you full access to the JavaScript console and console output in case you do not have access to the developer console, e.g. when testing on browserstack.com in certain mobile browsers. inline-console uses jquery.terminal under the hood.

For a screenshot see the 'Advanced Example' below.

Installation

Install the inline-console module via

npm install inline-console --save

yarn add inline-console

Usage

The default export of inline-console is a simple React component. It offers a property named redirect of type Boolean to control redirect behavior of console.log and its siblings. Furthermore you can provide an options and an interpreter property. The component renders a div element with the CSS class terminal attached. This div element gets populated by jquery.terminal.

Example 1:

import InlineConsole from 'inline-console';

const MyComponent = (props) => (
  <div className="inline-console">
    <InlineConsole redirect={true}/>
  </div>
);

Example 2:

import InlineConsole from 'inline-console';

const MyComponent = (props) => (
  <div className="inline-console">
    <InlineConsole
      redirect={false}
      options={{prompt: '>'}}
      interpreter={(command) => { alert(command); }}
    />
  </div>
);

You need to control the height of the terminal via CSS, to achieve typical terminal behavior. Example:

.inline-console .terminal {
  height: 300px;
}

Advanced Example

The following example illustrates a typical pattern I use in my applications.

index.html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>Example</title>
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1">
</head>
<body>
  <div id="app"></div>
  <div id="inline-console"></div>
</body>
</html>

index.css

...
#inline-console {
  display: none;
}

#inline-console .terminal {
  height: 300px;
}
...

main.js

...
import InlineConsole from 'inline-console';
import queryString from 'query-string';

const query = queryString.parse(window.location.search);

if( typeof query['inline-console'] !== 'undefined'
 && JSON.parse(query['inline-console'])
) {
  const container = document.getElementById('inline-console');
  container.style.display = 'block';
  render(
    <InlineConsole redirect={true}/>,
    container
  );
}
...

screenshot of example