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[ann] gtdebugger in pharo 5.0

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Nicolai Hess-3-2

Re: [Pharo-dev] [Moose-dev] [ann] gtdebugger in pharo 5.0

2016-01-15 13:39 GMT+01:00 Tudor Girba <[hidden email]>:

Hi,

Thanks indeed for the feedback. I think not quite all are bugs, but see more details inside.

> On Jan 14, 2016, at 12:59 PM, Andrei Chis <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Hi Nicolai,
>
> Thanks for reporting these issues. They are indeed bugs and we are working on fixing them.
>
> Cheers,
> Andrei
>
> On Tue, Jan 12, 2016 at 11:24 PM, Nicolai Hess <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>
> 2016-01-08 11:24 GMT+01:00 Tudor Girba <[hidden email]>:
> Hi,
>
> We are about to integrate in Pharo a new member of the Glamorous Toolkit: the GTDebugger. As this is a significant change that might affect your workflow, here is some background information to help you deal with the change.
>
> First, you should know that the change is not irreversible and it is easily possible to disabled the new debugger through a setting. However, please do take the time to provide us feedback if something does not work out for you. We want to know what can be improved and we try to react as fast as we can.
>
> A practical change comes from the fact that the variables are manipulated through a GTInspector, which makes it cheaper to maintain in the longer run.
>
> Accept and Cancel buttons shouldn't be there
> or should not act on if the codepane hasn't changed.
> (every press on "accept" writes a new method version, although the contents didn't changed - tested on
> Latest update: #50524 )

Good catch. This will happen even if the button would not be present.

> Most (all?) other tools don't have Accept/Cancel buttons.

The logic is that these are actions that do not depend on the selection, so in Glamour we map these on actions that are applicable to the entire presentation. A similar approach is present in the inspector, although probably it does not appear so prominently because there is no text. We could try to add them in a dropdown menu. Would that help?

> - I really miss the "List Methods using 'varname'/List Methods storing into ‘varname'

Please open an issue for this.

This issue is one year old:
14583 inspector and instvars : list methods storing into/using

> - is "stackTop" now gone ? I thought you wanted to add it to the stack ?
> - thisContext is gone as well ?

These were removed due to emergency mail exchange that happened during the last weekend.

> - the Bytecode/GT button is badly placed, it looks like the "downarrow" window menu icon
> is a dropdown menu with label “Bytecode"

We could try to fix by adding more space to the left of the menu bar in the theme. Could you open an issue?

> (since when do we put buttons in the title pane?

Since Glamour makes it easy to have them there :). The GTPlayground and GTInspector have them, too.

still I don't think this is a good idea. What is the difference between action buttons in the title pane

and the other one.

> - the evaluator pane is shown as "dirty", as it does not make a difference if we
> accept the text in this pane, there shouldn't be a dirty indicator.

This is a problem that seems to exist with basically every pharoScript in Glamour. You commented on an issue for this:
https://pharo.fogbugz.com/f/cases/16757/GLMHighlighterTextRubEditingMode-always-indicates-text-was-changed-even-when-it-wasn-t

Yes this is working nwo in 3.8.

> - you can not use the inspector pane to change inst var values

This is a problem but it is not specific to the debugger.

> - there is no way to refresh the inspector pane

Indeed. Would it be enough if we added a refresh for the whole debugger?

I don't know if there is an easy solution. But it was nice in the old debugger resp. inspector pane to have auto-updates for this values.

Cheers,
Doru

> I don't open bugtracker entries now, I 'll wait maybe this issues aren't bugs but
> features.
>
>
> nicolai
>
>
>
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--
www.tudorgirba.com
www.feenk.com

"Not knowing how to do something is not an argument for how it cannot be done."

Tudor Girba-2

Re: [Pharo-dev] [Moose-dev] [ann] gtdebugger in pharo 5.0

Hi,

> On Jan 17, 2016, at 7:56 PM, Nicolai Hess <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>
> […]

> > - I really miss the "List Methods using 'varname'/List Methods storing into ‘varname'
>
> Please open an issue for this.
>
> This issue is one year old:
> 14583 inspector and instvars : list methods storing into/using
>

Ok. Thanks. Fixed.

> […]

> > (since when do we put buttons in the title pane?
>
> Since Glamour makes it easy to have them there :). The GTPlayground and GTInspector have them, too.
>
> still I don't think this is a good idea. What is the difference between action buttons in the title pane
> and the other one.

We have now moved the accept and cancel to the contextual menu for now. However, the longer term goal is to change this pattern. Here is a longer explanation.

We think of the IDE like terms an object-oriented system built using a language. From this point of view, an action is put in the context that provides enough information to trigger it. So, for actions that do not rely on the selection, or on the cursor position, we can safely put them in the toolbar of the presentation. For global actions (like refreshing the whole inspector), we put them all the way in the title bar.

For example:
- "Do It” depends on the selection or cursor, and thus it is added to the context menu
- “Accept" is not specific to the current location of the cursor or of the selection and can be made presentation specific (added to the toolbar of the presentation).
- Switching the whole debugger to a “Bytecode” one is global for the whole debugger, and it is added to the top of the visual hierarchy.

This choice also documents the scope of an action. For example, imagine having a global toolbar with actions that only do something in a certain pane (out of possible many). How will you know before triggering what is the effect going to be? But, if you always put the action to the scope that it affects, there is a more clear connection because cause and effect.

And there is yet another advantage. When you stick with this design, you get potentially reusable components.

This does require some getting used to. And this design will not necessarily work for general UIs. But, an IDE is not a general UI. It is made for programmers, and in our case, it is made for object-oriented programmers, and we can use the abilities of such programmers in our designs.

Does this explanation make more sense?

Cheers,
Doru

--
www.tudorgirba.com
www.feenk.com

"To utilize feedback, you first have to acquire it."

Nicolai Hess-3-2

Re: [Pharo-dev] [Moose-dev] [ann] gtdebugger in pharo 5.0

2016-01-17 22:09 GMT+01:00 Tudor Girba <[hidden email]>:

Hi,

> On Jan 17, 2016, at 7:56 PM, Nicolai Hess <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>
> […]

> > - I really miss the "List Methods using 'varname'/List Methods storing into ‘varname'
>
> Please open an issue for this.
>
> This issue is one year old:
> 14583 inspector and instvars : list methods storing into/using
>

Ok. Thanks. Fixed.

Thanks Doru,

I commented on the bug report.

Will this be included in the (left most) inspector pane in the debugger?

(this is difficult to use in the "State"-pane, because as soon as you try to

bring up the popup-menu, the pane "slides away").

nicolai

--
www.tudorgirba.com
www.feenk.com

"To utilize feedback, you first have to acquire it."