Debugging Titanium Android applications with node-inspector

Debugging Titanium Android applications with node-inspector 
Thanks to Stevo Perisic

Download the https://github.com/node-inspector/node-inspector using 
$ npm install -g node-inspector

Than go to your titanium project folder and run:
$ node-inspector

after that in the same dir run:

JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/latest  titanium build -f -p android -T emulator -I 7 -S HVGA --debug-host localhost:5858

in your browser open localhost:8080/debug?port=5858

and voila! You have the chrome inspector in your android titanium project!

gistfile1.txt

notice:
titanium build "-I 7 -S HVGA" option tries to spawn avd named titanium_7_HVGA 

By the way, this also seems to work with GenyMotion. Here's the end of my command line: --device-id 192.168.56.103:5555 --debug-host adb:5858

Here's what I did to get this: I ensured Log Level is at least Info in Titanium Studio and pressed Debug in my GenyMotion setup. Right then it spits out the command that it uses to run the project (you can hide the dialog that shows the status to access the console). It was line 22 in the console, in my case. The command is something like this:

node c:\path\to\titanium --no-colors ... --device-id 192.168.56.103:5555 --debug-host adb:9149

Copy this line somewhere, add --skip-js-minify to it and change the port in the very end to the port that you'll use (adb:5858). Run it in a cmd with the appropriate JAVA_HOME and PATH variables set.

Then, you can connect to it just as above. It initially breaks at Titanium's module loading code. Once it loads your app.js, you can find it in the list of sources and add breakpoints to your own code.

However, the extra benefit of this seems to be just the interactive console with autocomplete. The rest is covered by Titanium's debugger just fine. The console can be a huge benefit sometimes, but I wish it would be simpler to reach it.

Actually I just found a much easier way to do this all.

1. Disable JavaScript minification in the Debug Configuration in Titanium Studio.
2. Press debug in Titanium Studio.
3. Once you see the application running in GenyMotion, look at the Titanium Studio console to find the command it was ran with (in the console, see above comment), and from there copy the debug port number (the number in adb:11421 at the very end of the command).
4. Stop the Titanium Studio debugger with the red stop button.
5. Visit http://127.0.0.1:8080/debug?port=11421 (with the port number that you copied)
6. Enjoy!

It seems to remember breakpoints across runs, too. The only caveat is that you lose the ability to log with Ti.API.info() and such. But since you are debugging line by line, you won't really need that much. You could probably set Ti.API.info function to a function of your choice from the node-inspector console if you really needed that anyway.

Great. Thanks, will give it a try!