Force DOM element in "inspected mode"

Question

In Chrome, if one right-clicks a DOM element and selects "inspect element", then one is brought to the "Elements" tab of the debugger. In addition, the JavaScript variable $0 becomes populated with the "inspected" DOM element.

Given a DOM element, is there a way to have JavaScript force the browser to "inspect" it, so that the browser fills in the value for $0 natively, without doing the assignment ourselves?

Answer 1

As written in the documentation, the Chrome Web Developer supports Firebug's Command Line API. And one of the methods present there is inspect which does what you want.

Unfortunately, that is a Command Line API, which means that it's only valid in the console, at the command line, not from in-page scripts. There's no way to control the web developer tool from an in-page script, other than through the Console API which provides mostly logging facilities.