ASP.NET 3.5 For Dummies®

23.10. Use the Free Tools

To dig deeper into the HTML and script that your ASP.NET application is exchanging with a browser, get "close to the wire." Here are some advanced tools that I use to get an X-ray view of the application's innards:

• Fiddler2: This program logs all HTTP(S) traffic between your computer and the Internet so that you can view HTTP headers, text, cookies, and URLs. Additionally, you can adjust and replay the content of Web forms to see how the Web server responds. It's free at www.fiddler2.com.

• Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar: A great plug-in for analyzing the hierarchy of tags in a Web page. You can select an object, such as a table, and view the properties, styles, and markup that it contains. To download a copy, navigate to www.microsoft.com/downloads and search for Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar.

• Reflector: A fantastic decompiler for probing into the compiled version of an ASP.NET page and snooping in .NET assemblies. After using Reflector, you understand why product vendors obfuscate code to protect their intellectual property. Get Reflector from www.aisto.com/roeder/dotnet.

• Web Development Helper: A project by Microsoft's ASP.NET guru, Nikhil Kothari, this Internet Explorer plug-in allows you to trace and log interactions between the browser and the Web server. You can view the current values of objects as Internet Explorer sees them by poking about in the Document Object Model (DOM). Download the plug-in from http://projects.nikhilk.net/Projects/WebDevHelper.aspx ...