The Developer Console is quickly becoming the easiest and most powerful place to work with Apex and Visualforce code. If you haven’t tried it lately, log in to an organization and click Your Name > Developer Console to see how the Developer Console can simplify your work.

This video tells the story of how a Force.com developer uses the Developer Console to build and test credit card processing in an app. Along the way, the video shows off most of the Developer Console’s Summer ’12 features.

Execute Anonymous Apex enhancements

Execute Anonymous Apex code at the top of the Developer Console—you can enter code no matter which view you’re working in.
Open an Execute Anonymous editor in its own browser window—leave it open and use browser keyboard shortcuts to switch between Execute Anonymous and the Developer Console as you work.
Execute only highlighted lines of code.
Choose to open the log automatically when code executes.

Syntax highlighting

Quickly scan your Apex code thanks to the syntax highlighting you’ve come to expect in an IDE.

Workspaces

Create workspaces to organize groups of tabs that you use together. Workspaces persist across sessions and can include source code, logs, heap dumps, and object views. Switch between workspaces as you change tasks. Workspaces remember changes as you work. For example, if you open a new tab, it becomes part of the workspace.

Navigate through tab history

Use the keyboard shortcuts CTRL+, (backward) and CTRL+.(forward) to navigate through your tab history during a session. You can also use the <> buttons at the top of the Developer Console.

Navigate to method and variable declarations

Select a method or variable name and, if it’s underlined, use CTRL+ALT+N to open its declaration.

Overlay Apex code and SOQL statements

To create specific conditions for testing, write Apex code and SOQL statements that run when code at a heap dump location executes. For example, you could set a variable to a certain value or create a state in the database. To overlay Apex and SOQL, in the Heap Dump Locations panel, click Edit Properties.

Performance Tree

To see an operation’s aggregated duration, duration percentage, heap size, or heap size percentage, use the Performance Tree in the Stack panel of the System Log view.

Learn more

For more information and screenshots, see the Summer ’12 Release Notes or click Help in the Developer Console.