The IE 9 team have released one of the many tools they built while implementing the browser to developers to help them improve their websites.
The IE 9 “Compat Inspector” (presumably they became irritated with repeating “compatibility”) is a JavaScript script that can be inserted in development web pages. It uses a series of rules created by the team during real-world testing of IE 9 previews to identify JavaScript code that will cause problems with IE 9 in standards mode.
The script can be inserted by a developer in the page itself, or through the use of a Fiddler script which can perform the function automatically. Once in place, warnings are given by the inspector highlighting JavaScript code that is deprecated or erroneous. The example used in the site is the removed support for angle brackets in createElement function calls.
The script leverages IE 9’s support for ECMAScript 5, which allows the script to override native APIs and track interactions between the page and the browser engine – this permits exposure of problems at runtime.
There’s more on the Compat Inspector on the IE 9 blog, where you can also pick up the script and Fiddler if you don’t have it already.
Comments