DSDP/DD/MultiContext UnlinkViewContextProposal

Overview

This is a proposal to change the workflow of selecting the context for data displayed in standard debug views. This includes: Variables, Registers, Expressions, Memory, and possibly the Console views. This proposal builds on the previous efforts to implement "pin and clone" functionality in these views.

Goals

• To make it possible to switch the active context of a debug view without exiting the view.
• To make it possible to switch the active context of a debug view and without having to have the Debug view visible.
• To make it possible to have multiple instances of debug views open and showing data from different contexts side-by-side.
• To avoid violating any established UI paradigms with respect to views' interaction.

New UI Components and Workflow changes

Debug context selection dialog

A modal new selection dialog would allow user to choose the input context. When the debug context selection dialog is opened it shows a tree viewer where the top nodes are the participating debug context providers. Platform will provide the Launch Manager as the standard debug context provider, but others, such as Target Manager could also be shown. User can select the desired context in the dialog and press OK.

The debug context selection dialog should have a dedicated key binding and a tool-bar button (or view menu item).

Link button

The debug views all have a link toggle button on their toolbars. If the link button is down (default), the view context follows the active debug context as is does currently. If the link button is up, the input context into the view does not change unless it is explicitly changed by the user with the input selection dialog.

View content description

With the debug views able to select their own input context, and with the Launch view possibly hidden or absent, it may be difficult to determine what actually is the current context of a given debug view. To address this problem, the content description of the view should be activated whenever a debug view is showing contents from a context that is different from the currently selected window context.

The content description of a view is currently rather limited in that it is only capable of showing text. To make it more useful for this feature, it should be extended to provide an icon as well.

Multiple view instances

Standard debug views should be configured to allow multiple instances of views to be opened. A toolbar button (or view menu item) should be added to easily open a new instance of the view. The memory view already supports this feature.