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Increase Discoverability of Client Side Debugging. * Submit Proposal & Implement * Use dialog box to determine if the user want to use Server Side or Client Side Debugging.. Governed by "Remember my selections checkbox." Client Side Debugging in on by default. If Server side is already switched off and if it is deselected, disable the okay button. Include notice that they need to have at least one selected. Also note at bottom of the dialog box how they can set the setting without this dialog. * See attached images for details.
Created attachment 65001 [details] Server Side On Dialog
Created attachment 65002 [details] Server Side Off Dialog
Usability study has shown that the client side debugging (JavaScript) feature is hard to debug. To address this issue we are proposing these changes to the work flow of debug action in Web/Java EE, Ruby on Rails, PHP and Grails projects. Context ------- The Debug (Client Side) option will be enabled by default. Currently this option is visible in the Project Properties:Debug category panel, and is hard to discover. [X] Debug (Server Side) [X] Debug (Client Side) The user has to choose at least one of the above. NOTE: This applies to Web/Java EE, Ruby on Rails and PHP projects. For Grails projects the Debug (Client Side) option is always true because there is no server side debugging. Therefore, if the user does not want to debug they have to choose Run action instead of Debug action. For client side debugging the user has a choice of browser to use for debugging. ( ) Firefox ( ) Internet Explorer NOTE: Internet Explorer is available on Windows only - grayed out on other platforms. Proposed changes ---------------- When the user invokes the debug action in Web/Java EE, Ruby on Railsand PHP projects the following dialog will be shown: +--------------------------------------------+ | | | | | [X] Debug (Client Side) | | | | (o) Firefox | | ( ) Internet Explorer | | | | You can manage these settings in the | | Debug Category of Project Properties | | Dialog. | | | | [ ] Do not show this message again. | | | | | | [OK] | | | +--------------------------------------------+ As shown above the Debug (Client side) option will be selected initially. Firefox browser will be selected initially. The choice of Internet Explorer will be grayed out on non-windows platform. When the user clicks OK - if the Debug (Client Side) option is selected the Client side debugging session will be started with the selected browser. The rest of the debugger launching process will look similar to what is currently there. If the Debug (Client Side) option is not selected the application URL will be lanched in the default browser. The client side debugging session will not be launched. The changes in selection here will affect the Project Properties;Debug category. Initially comment in the issue says the dialog is - Governed by "Remember my selections checkbox.". However based on the proposal here we do remember the user choices. Therefore new proposed message is "Do not show this message again.". For Grails project the dialog will look like this i.e. Debug Client Side is a label instead of a checkbox: +--------------------------------------------+ | | | | | Debug (Client Side) | | | | (o) Firefox | | ( ) Internet Explorer | | | | You can manage these settings in the | | Debug Category of Project Properties | | Dialog. | | | | [ ] Do not show this message again. | | | | | | [OK] | | | +--------------------------------------------+ Thus if the user does not want to debug they have to choose Run action instead of debug action. Questions --------- If the user discovers the Project Properties:Debug Category prior to invoking the debug action and makes changes to the default settings we could assume that they have discovered the feature and therefore not show the above dialog. Comments?
Debug category in PHP project can be confusing, because it doesn't reflect runtime/debug configurations. If the user uses Run/Debug Script configuration, then the proposed dialog shouldn't be displayed and client side debugging should be switched off. User expects output in the output window and no browser shouldn't be started in this configuration.
I would consider also to show browser selection only when applicable, e.g. if current IDE's browser is Firefox or IE then do not show browser selection at all. If only FF is available on a platform does it make any sense to show it either? Perhaps combo box is better widget than radio for browser selection. Re. "If the user discovers the Project Properties:Debug Category prior" - IMO, I would show message box anyway. It is easy to hide it via "do not show this again". UI expert may have different opinion though.
Integrated into 'main-golden', available in build *200808021401* on http://bits.netbeans.org/dev/nightly/ Changeset: http://hg.netbeans.org/main/rev/5a46bd312254 User: Quy Nguyen <quynguyen@netbeans.org> Log: Add enable/disable client-side dialog on Debug; Fixes #139176 #140840 #141759
Done for M2.