> On 2021-04-28, at 12:18 PM, Chris Muller <asqueaker at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Tim,
> 
>> - all the other browsers ought to support the drag stuff too. I see some do, but the messagetrace doesn't appear to.
> 
> "The drag stuff" tells me you don't have a firm grip on the purpose
> and scope of the use-cases.  MessageTrace uses swipe to select
> multiple methods.  It's rightly confined to what you trace, DnD
> outside its browser doesn't make sense for tracing.

I mildly disagree. Dragging *out* would make sense in various ways. To open another browser, for example. To drop into a text view (where I'd quite like to get the method's reference pasted, perhaps with shift held the method source. Right now we get a not very useful 'compiledMethodBunchOfDigits') or a FileBrowser.

> 
>> - drag a method into a MessageTrace browser and thus add implementors of that message to the stack.
> 
> That would result in multiple, unrelated Trace's all in the one
> window.  I don't understand why you'd want to do that.

I can imagine having a use for a message trace open on several related methods that do not specifically tie together. Maybe #at: & #at:put: would be an example. This would be using a message tracer as a way of gathering methods together as part of thinking about refactorings or extensions. 

> 
>> - Nothing to do with d&d, but how about a very simple way to add notes to methods in a browser? I'm thinking here of using a messagetrace browser and wanting to add little (pop-up?) notes to remind me of any points I notice as I follow the messages up and down. Why was I looking at this? What is it related to? All that stuff it is so easy to forget a week later when you start climbing back up the rabbit hole you fell into.
> 
> Why not simply send Object>>#todo, and include a comment next to it?
> No little pop-ups please!

I don't want to *edit* the code for this, I want to *annotate* it in the context of the tool I am using.

One might make a plausible argument that this is not a message tracer anymore; whatever. I suggest that it would be a useful tool.


tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
"Bother" said Pooh, as he realised Piglet was undercooked.