Comments and request for features/fixes
Teknogrebo
Join Date: 2007-10-30 Member: 62771Members
Join Date: 2007-10-30 Member: 62771Members
in Decoda
Hi there,
I don't know if the forum is the best place for questions or a direct email, but I'll try here first.
Firstly, thanks for the great product you're working on. I'm very impressed with Decoda's feature list and the continued work you are doing. I was most impressed by the fact that my two main issues with 1.05 where fixed in 1.06. Fantastic job. My company has licensed one copy already, and I am pushing them for me licences for the rest of the team.
So, on to a couple of things that I would like to see in future version.
1. Quickwatch/Mouse over variable in editor window to show value so you don't need to add all variables to watch window
2. Buffers don't change between seperate runs. 90% of our scripts are loaded using string buffers and edited in Visual Studio. If the buffer window is left open in Decoda when it is edited, the buffer isn't updated.
3. Would be nice if Decoda opened last project when loading
4. Full integration with VS. I.e. Running as a VS plugin so that we can edit and debug in VS, rather than debugging in Decoda and editing in VS.
And a couple of problems:
1. I'm having problems integrating with my source control (Perforce). I can select Perforce as a provider, but don't really know what project file I'm supposed to browsing for with the browse button. The window opens up to show the Perforce depot, but there are no selectable files in any folder.
2. I can reliably reproduce a crash when I attach Decoda to an already running process. This occurs in a garbage collection cycle and I think it is when a state that was created before Decoda was attached is freed by the GC. I can send a call stack if required.
Thanks for the ongoing support, and I look forward to future updates!
Tom
I don't know if the forum is the best place for questions or a direct email, but I'll try here first.
Firstly, thanks for the great product you're working on. I'm very impressed with Decoda's feature list and the continued work you are doing. I was most impressed by the fact that my two main issues with 1.05 where fixed in 1.06. Fantastic job. My company has licensed one copy already, and I am pushing them for me licences for the rest of the team.
So, on to a couple of things that I would like to see in future version.
1. Quickwatch/Mouse over variable in editor window to show value so you don't need to add all variables to watch window
2. Buffers don't change between seperate runs. 90% of our scripts are loaded using string buffers and edited in Visual Studio. If the buffer window is left open in Decoda when it is edited, the buffer isn't updated.
3. Would be nice if Decoda opened last project when loading
4. Full integration with VS. I.e. Running as a VS plugin so that we can edit and debug in VS, rather than debugging in Decoda and editing in VS.
And a couple of problems:
1. I'm having problems integrating with my source control (Perforce). I can select Perforce as a provider, but don't really know what project file I'm supposed to browsing for with the browse button. The window opens up to show the Perforce depot, but there are no selectable files in any folder.
2. I can reliably reproduce a crash when I attach Decoda to an already running process. This occurs in a garbage collection cycle and I think it is when a state that was created before Decoda was attached is freed by the GC. I can send a call stack if required.
Thanks for the ongoing support, and I look forward to future updates!
Tom
Comments
If you select something in the editor window and then mouse over it, it will show you the value. I implemented the mouse over that way because I was concerned that the code being evaluated might accidentally cause side effects. I retrospect I don't think this is really an issue so I'll be changing that in a future version.
I believe the issue you describe with the automatically loaded scripts should be addressed in the next version (if it's not, please let me know). When you say the code is loaded from buffers, do you mean code that's embedded in your C++ code? If it's not, I'd suggest adding the script files to the Decoda project.
Opening the last project is something that's planned but we haven't gotten around to yet. I'll try to get that in for the next version. Integration with Visual Studio as a plug-in is also something that's planned. I'd suggest giving editing in Decoda a try though! If there's something preventing that, let me know.
The Perforce SCC plugin UI is a bit unusual. I'll have to go through it a bit to figure out the right thing to do there, but I definitely had some raised eyebrows of my own when I first tried it out. I'll take a look at the garbage collection issue as well. Decoda does do some processing during the GC so it sounds like there's a definitely something amiss there.
99% of our code is in external files that get cached in a hashtable to speed up creation of our objects as many of them use identical scripts. We were having difficulty with Decoda creating temporary files with the buffer, even if we had the file loaded into the project. I have resolved this by passing the name of the lua file to luaL_LoadBuffer, rather than an internal Id that we set up for each object. I don't know as yet how this will affect some of our objects that are run from different files but the same filename.
Reasons why I prefer editing in VS:
1. As my team work both with C++ & lua at the same time it is awkward swapping between dev environments depending on what file needs to be edited.
2. We have 100's of files many with the same name, having a flat file structure in the Project Window is very limiting. It would be nice to be able to organise the files in folders (I do like the function selector in this window though, and the file filter works nicely - like the Visual Assist feature "open file in workspace" which I use all the time)
3. I can't get our source control working, so we would need to check out files externally
4. Visual Assist gives me a dropdown list of the functions within a file that I can filter to find a specific function (like the filter on the project explorer - admitedly this doesnt work with lua files, so this would be 1 over VS if implemented in Decoda)
5. Find/Replace in all files in project
There are probably more reasons that I will think of as I drive home tonight, but that's all for now <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
I've had a little bit more feedback from the guys in my team with some more feature requests:
1. A "locals" watch window so you don't have to drag all your local variables into the main watch window.
2. Data breakpoints
3. Temporary buffer files aren't removed from the project explorer when the states are destroyed. I don't know if this is intentional or not, but as they are temp buffers anyway you can't edit them, so it just seems to clutter up the window. This may just be my personal preference, but if that is the case it could be made an optional feature.
Good news about the ongoing work, I look forward to the next update <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
<!--quoteo(post=1660048:date=Nov 9 2007, 05:50 PM:name=Teknogrebo)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Teknogrebo @ Nov 9 2007, 05:50 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1660048"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->2. We have 100's of files many with the same name, having a flat file structure in the Project Window is very limiting. It would be nice to be able to organise the files in folders (I do like the function selector in this window though, and the file filter works nicely - like the Visual Assist feature "open file in workspace" which I use all the time)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh yes <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> I am also waiting for organizing files in folders. It would be great to drag the whole scripts directory tree and drop to Project Window.
In the second way it could be realized as normal "files explorer" dialogbar/tab window and "scripts root directory" parameter in project settings.
Any chance for this feature?
Greetings! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
Bart