[being really picky here...] I really like the idea of automatically
showing the current value of instance/temporary vars, but personally I
don't like to 'have to' click (you may as well click on the fields below).
How about adding a text field that would automatically show print-it values
as the mouse scrolls over keywords? If you really want a great UI, also
have each keyword highlight under the mouse in a unique way to alert the
user to look at the text field (inverse in a unique color?). 

I admit this is *very* picky, but this will be especially useful in helping
newbies and programmers from other languages get comfortable with Smalltalk
quickly. I have tried to tempt many and have seen time and again how
quickly they get frustrated beyond return at what to a Smalltalker seems
simple and trivial. So, the effort is, I think, well worth while.

	Danny


At 03:12 AM 8/24/99 -0400, you wrote:
>
>On Sat, 21 Aug 1999, Bob Arning wrote:
>
>> For those who wanted to see a SyntaxMorph in the debugger, here it is:
>>
>> http://www.charm.net/~arning/DebugMorph.21Aug1030am.cs
>>
>> These changes add a menu item to the debugger context stack menu that
>> will toggle the code pane between a standard code pane and a
>> SyntaxMorph.
>
>Nice.  However, things could really start to get exciting if you tailored
>the SyntaxMorph pop-up menus to the debugging context.
>
>Clicking on any instance/temporary variable could show its current value
>in the pop-up!  (Then you wouldn't need the bottom panes on the debugger
>as much.)  Clicking on any MessageNode could show its returned object
>printString, if the code had executed that far.  (Maybe you could cache
>these returned objects.)  Clicking on "self" would show the receiver's
>current value, etc.  This context info could be at or near the top of the
>pop-up, while the more static information would follow.
>
>> (from a different thread...)
>>
>> One thought I had along those lines was to replace or supplement
>> expressions with their result as they were evaluated. That way you could
>> see the code in action as you stepped through it:
>
>Sounds good.  (You wouldn't want to rely on pop-ups for everything.)  I
>would tend to go with "supplementing" rather than "replacing", otherwise
>you'd lose track of the original source code.  You could have the result
>appear inside the appropriate box, beneath the source code, in a brighter
>color or something.  I guess this would involve a fair amount of
>redrawing... another alternative would be to bring up the result in some
>sort of floating pop-up/balloon.
>
>- Doug Way
>  dway at mat.net
>
>
>> Since this modifies the debugger, I would be very cautious
>> about saving an image with this installed.
>> Requirements:
>> 1. SyntaxMorph changeset.
>> 2. Release 2.5 through changeset 1383.
>> 3. Runs in MORPHIC only.
>> 4. 16-bit color highly recommended
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Bob
>
>

---

Dr. Daniel V. Oppenheim
                                                                
	Computer Music Center
	IBM T.J. Watson Research Center	     phone: (914) 945-1989
	P. O. Box 218 (or Route 134)	     fax:   (914) 945-3434  
	Yorktown Heights, NY 10598	     www.research.ibm.com/music