Debug-Bar-Extender

This plugins adds more features to the debug-bar and is mainly aimed at developers who like to debug their code or want to measure runtimes to find glitches in their code.
It also allows lookup of variables by adding simple code snippets in your source.

Please note that this plugin should be used solely for debugging or on a development environment and is not intended for use in a production site.

Requirements

This plugin requires the debug-bar plugin >0.5 and a developers’ brain to work correctly.

Usage

Usage example to debug the loop of a theme

Add your checkpoints in the index.php or any other template file as shown below.

checkpoint('loop start'); ?>



trace_var( $post ); ?>

checkpoint('loop1'); ?>

 id="post-">


 by 



'); ?>  |  



checkpoint('loop2'); ?>



checkpoint('loop end'); ?>

Advanced usage

Looking at the source of the debug-bar-extender.php you will notice that there are various filters to control the default settings. This is useful when you are working on a multisite install and want to use the debug bar without having to adjust the settings every time. Here’s an example of how settings enforced by a php file in mu-plugins/ could look like

add_filter( 'debugbarextender_default_settings', 'my_debug_bar_extender_settings' );
// enforce debug bar settings
function my_debug_bar_extender_settings( $default_settings ) {
    $default_settings = array(
            'enable_profiler'               => 1,
            'enable_variable_lookup'        => 1,
            'track_default_vars'            => 0,
            'add_default_checkpoints'       => 1,
            'savequeries_debugmode_enable'  => 1,
            'use_error_log'                 => 0,
            'allow_url_settings'            => 1,
            'enable_admin_bar_menu'         => 1,
    );
    return $default_settings;
}

add_filter( 'debugbarextender_default_checkpoint_actions', 'my_debug_bar_extender_checkpoints' );
// initiate some default checkpoints
function my_debug_bar_extender_checkpoints( $default_checkpoints ) {
    $default_checkpoints = array(
                    'muplugins_loaded',
                    'wp_head',
                    'wp_footer',
                    'loop_start',
                    'loop_end',
                    'shutdown',
    );
    return $default_checkpoints;
}

Wishlist

This is a work in progress, so feel free to pass by on our plugin page and leave us
your suggestions in the comments.

1. 

   Settings screen to enable/disable various features.

2. 

   Profiler output showing the runtimes between default checkpoints.

3. 

   Lookup of various default variables

Version 0.5

• added filters to control settings debugbarextender_default_settings, debugbarextender_default_checkpoint_actions
• added wrapper functions dbgx_checkpoint( $note = '' ) and dbgx_trace_var( $value, $var_name = false ) for easier access to debugging functions.
• added new setting option to allow control of some settings via $_GET parameters in the urls. Allows dbgx_use_error_log, dbgx_track_default_vars, dbgx_add_default_checkpoints to be added as query strings in order to enable respective features. Combinations are possible – for example: /wp-admin/options-general.php?page=debug-bar-extender&dbgx_use_error_log=1&dbgx_add_default_checkpoints=1&dbgx_track_default_vars=1
• added new setting option to enable a admin bar menu with shortcuts to this urls

Version 0.4

• Moving style enqueuing to init hook. We don’t want to be doing it wrong https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/18556

Version 0.3

• Fixed conflicting enqueueing which should fix issues with Debug Console plugin. Thanks to AaronCampbell and Westi

Version 0.2

• fixed: prevent filters which have same names as actions to fail.

Version 0.1

• Initial version of this plugin.