PDP Debugger changes

Image of the Debugger window with the PDP enhancements.The PDP Debugger (Professional Debug Package,) is a group of enhancements to the VisualWorks debugger created by Crafted Smalltalk. The DevTools add some additional functionality to those changes.

Aside from the source button resizing and the scroll bars speed governor, the primary changes to PDP version of the debugger are in the Context list pane, the Text source pane, and the inspector panes.


Image of the pop up menu in the call stack subpane. The added menu item is "browse receiver hierarchy".Context list menu and pane:

There is a new item in this pop-up menu and an added feature in the pane.

browse receiver hierarchy

This provides a way to open up a Class Hierarchy browser on the class of the selected method call.

The menu item browse receiver hierarchy on the Context list pane pop-up menu can be removed from the menu using code in the supplied DevTools workspace.

See EtAbstractMethodsBrowser>>browseSelectedMethodHierarchy and its callers for additional details.

double clicking on context methods

When a selected method call in the context list pane is double clicked, a Class Hierarchy browser will be opened on the class of the selected method call.

This double clicking feature can be turned on or off using code in the supplied DevTools workspace.

See EtAbstractMethodsBrowser>>browseSelectedMethodHierarchy and its callers for additional details.

The new pop up menu in text edit panes. New menu items include "debug it", "map keystrokes..." and "paste special", "browse", and "font" submenus.Text pane menu:

The text pane in the browser has an enhanced pop-up menu like the one on the right.

These changes are documented in the TextEditor pop-up menu changes.

See EtDebugger>>textMenu and its callers for additional details.

Partial image of the lower panes of a debugger window. Shown are the new SortedInspector subpanes for the inspected objects.Receiver Inspector pane:

In this pane, the standard Inspector has been replaced with a SortedInspector.

For a SortedInspector in a separate window, double click on the self entry in the instance variable list. Alternately select self, pop up the SortedInspector’s instance pane menu, and pick the inspect sorted menu item.

See EtDebugger>>openInspectors and its callers for additional details.

Image of the SortedInspector instance pane popup menu. New items include "inspect sorted", and the "sort" and "browse” submenus.Context Inspector pane:

In this pane, the standard ContextInspector has been replaced with a SortedContextInspector. It works much the same as a SortedInspector except that the sorts are alpha and none only. Since this Inspector only details the variables local to the current context, the hierarchy sort has no meaning.

See EtDebugger>>openInspectors, its callers and the class SortedContextInspector for additional details.


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