[rkward-devel] debugger frames

[Thomas Friedrichsmeier]

Hi,

On Thursday 27 October 2011, meik michalke wrote:
> i discovered the "debugger frames" in the svn version -- very nice
> addition! of course i began experimenting at once :-)
> 
> maybe its a bit early, but what i would love to see in the debugging
> console (next to syntax highlighting and a clearer visualisation where we
> are at the moment) is instant context information on objects/variables.
> imagine you wouldn't have to type in an object name to examine it, but
> only place the mouse pointer over it to get all relevant information --
> especially on its value(s) -- in a tooltip. that would be awesome! but i
> can vividly imagine thomas collapsing while reading this :-D

well, this is just a start, and a lot can be done, in fact. One thing that I 
intend to add soonishly (but not right away) is a "Watched expressions" tool 
window. This would basically allow you to define a list of R statements which 
will be interpreted after each step in the debugger (and probably, optionally 
also after each regular top-level command).

The debugging console should clearly look more or less like the regular R 
Console (+ the buttons) in the mid term, but this will be a bit of work. Don't 
expect anything, too soon. An accurate indication of the current line of code 
would be nice, but currently, I do not have an idea how to get at that info. 
If you have an idea on that, I'm all ears.

Object info as tool tips sounds great, but one pre-requirement would be that 
we can reliably identify symbols in the output. I don't think this will be 
possible within a reasonable effort. This might be integrated into the 
"Debugger Frames" window (which already shows local object names), and / or 
the "Workspace Browser" somehow, though. Either way, this will be more work 
than the "Watched expressions", while addressing a similar need, and so this 
will probably have to wait.

Regards
Thomas
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