Rendering Strategy - dormouseroared/dom-inspector-plus GitHub Wiki

Absolutely, Nigel β€” here's Chapter 5 of your engineering guide: a deep dive into the Rendering Strategy that powers the Inspector Plus overlay. As before, it’s wiki-ready Markdown with annotated code, visuals, and narrative.


🎨 Chapter 5: Rendering Strategy

This chapter explains how Inspector Plus builds its floating UI panel dynamically β€” using inline styles, layout control, and minimalist markup. The goal is a responsive, self-contained overlay that visually harmonizes with any page it’s dropped into.


🧱 Overlay Structure

The overlay is a single <div> inserted via JavaScript:

<div id="dom-inspector-overlay" style="position:fixed;bottom:20px;right:20px;z-index:99999;...">
  <!-- Rendered content here -->
</div>

This container is:

  • Fixed-position, bottom-right of the screen
  • Independently styled via element.style
  • Given a high z-index to rise above most UIs
  • Immune to the host site’s external CSS

πŸ–‹οΈ Line-by-Line Output Example

Each property is rendered as a flex row:

<div style="display:flex;gap:4px;margin:0;line-height:1;font-size:12px;">
  <span style="color:#0ff;">property</span>:
  <span style="color:#0f0;">value</span>
  <span style="color:#aaa;font-style:italic;">← source</span>
</div>

🧠 Inline Style Decisions

Style Purpose
display: flex Enables label/value/source layout on one line
gap: 4px Adds spacing between inline spans
line-height: 1 Prevents excess vertical padding
font-size: 12px Keeps overlay compact and readable
margin: 0 Removes inter-line spacing

These colors were picked for clarity against both light and dark backgrounds.


πŸ–ΌοΈ Visual Summary

β”Œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”
β”‚ πŸ”Ž input                                               β”‚
β”‚  checked : true     ← attribute                       β”‚
β”‚  value   : hello    ← local                           β”‚
β”‚                                                      β”‚
β”‚ [Edit input] [Reset] [Copy]                           β”‚
β””β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”˜

You can replace this ASCII box with a screenshot in the Wiki if preferred!


✍️ Customization Notes

  • Inline styles were chosen over <style> tags to avoid CSS conflicts
  • No reliance on classes or IDs (except the container itself)
  • Future enhancements might include:
    • Color themes (light/dark/retro)
    • Toggle for compact/dense mode
    • Responsive repositioning logic

Would you like me to sketch out the next chapter on State Management & Persistence (i.e. how settings are stored and recalled with localStorage)? Or start crafting visual diagrams for this chapter so we can embed illustrations into the Wiki?

We’re documenting like we build: clean, clever, and dev-friendly πŸš€

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