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BDebugger Environment tab behavior documentation

Jun
149
13
I've been experimenting more with BDebugger and discovered some details about the behavior of the Environment tab which could be documented more clearly.

Environment tab
  • If a variable is added or changed (before starting a Debug session)
    • Starting a debug session (without saving the change) will remove the changes and revert back to the originally loaded environment displaying in the window
    • The "New" button will remove the changes and revert back to the originally loaded environment displaying in the window
    • The "Reset" button will save the changes made in the tab.
      • The New button will not remove the changes after they have been saved

  • If a variable is added or changed after starting a Debug session
    • Continuing to execute (e.g. Step Into, or run to Breakpoint) will not see the new/changed variable, but it will still be displayed in the window
    • The "New" button will remove the changes and revert back to the originally loaded environment displaying in the window
    • The "Reset" button will save the changes made in the tab.
      • The New button will not remove the changes after they have been saved

The help does have a one-liner for what each button does, but I have some suggestions:
  • The Help refers to the "Reset" button as the "Apply" button, but the tooltip for the button says "Reset". I think Apply is more appropriate to describe the behavior.
  • "New" used in both the help and the tooltip doesn't seem to capture what that button actually does, making it less than intuitive. The help one-liner for that button says "Restore the original values for the environment" which is pretty descriptive. Maybe the button should be called "Restore", or maybe more fittingly "Discard" since practically speaking I think it serves just to discard changes.
  • I think it's kind of non-intuitive if I make a change to the environment, (but don't "Apply" the changes) that the changes are shown but are not actually what is in the environment. Ideally it would be good if changes could be shown in a different color until they are "Applied". Short of that being possible, it might be good to explain or emphasize in the help that you can change the environment in an active Debug session but that you must apply the changes for them to take effect. (The help has numerous examples of where "Gotchas" are documented to help users not shoot themselves in the foot.)
  • You could also just apply the DWIM paradigm to the Environment tab of the debugger :)
 
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