Redesign of "Configure Launches" dialog

Andreas Pakulat apaku at gmx.de
Sun Feb 5 17:43:22 UTC 2012


On 05.02.12 17:22:39, Niko Sams wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 18:24, Sven Brauch <svenbrauch at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > Hi there!
> >
> > I think most people here agree that the current "Configure launches"
> > dialog is quite horrible. Let me quickly summarize the main pitfalls:
> > 1. Undiscoverable: I guess most users won't find out that you can
> > switch the launch configuration type to "Script" in the tree view. You
> > have to horizontally scroll that treeview to uncover an unseen colum,
> > then double-click some text which doesn't look like you can click it
> > to activate a drop-down-list. This is especially relevant for me, as
> > the python plugin requires this functionality to be easy-to-find.
> > 2. Unpractical: Even if you know how it works, the whole thing feels
> > really sluggish to do, because of the tiny hard-to-find "add" buttons
> > and the vertical scrolling.
> > 3. Illogical: Why is "Debug" a sub-item in the treeview for the launch
> > configuration? In my eyes, that doesn't make any sense. The whole
> > tree-view seems overkill for a top-layer which often has only one item
> > (at least I seldom have more than one or two projects opened), which
> > often only has one or two sub-items (the configurations) which also
> > have exactly one sub-item.
> >
> > Anyway, enough said about the old one. Here's my suggestion for a new
> > dialog, which I'd like to discuss and improve:
> >    http://imgur.com/a/lnciJ#0
> > Here's the UI file:
> >    http://files.feorar.org/launchdialog2.ui
> >
> > Changing the "Program type" dropdown thing to something else would
> > change the tab layout (for example add an "interpreter" tab).
> > Please tell me what you think. Of course it's totally non-functional,
> > currently (the UI file is just a mockup).
> >
> Your mockup is looking very good!
> 
> Some comments:
> - what about multiple dependencies? Please don't drop them :D
> - There will be some api changes required to support Debugger tab between two
>   tabs from native launcher

I don't see a reason for it to be able to decide where in the list the
Debug tab shows up. There's currently no such guarantee either - its
just that there's only a single sub-entry.

> - In your mockup there is no way to change the debugger type (yes that
> is possible in
>   the current dialog - though atm there is only one available. But it
> is required eg. when you
>   have a php and a python debugger)

Or gdb and cdb (the latter is for msvc)

> > 3. Illogical: Why is "Debug" a sub-item in the treeview for the launch
> > configuration?
> The valgrind plugin used to create additional Profile entries.
> (but that should work well with tabs as in your mockup)

The archive should have some discussion between me and Volodya about the
GUI and why things are done as they are. I cannot recall the specifics
for using a sub-entry instead of tabs.

Andreas





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