New Variable Watcher

[Ray Horsley]

Thanks, Ken, for your attention regarding the VW.  Generally  
speaking, the inherently close relationship between the VW and the  
Script Editor [SE] beckon several questions.  Typically throughout my  
day I open the SE without opening the VW and write my scripts.  I  
then run them with the debugger on, in which case I nearly always  
want the VW open.  I assume a lot of us work this way but I'm not  
sure since I never stand over anybody's shoulder and look.  But if my  
assumption is correct I think the following short list would greatly  
increase productivity and eliminate a lot of repetitive chores:

1)  When the SE opens in debug mode the VW should automatically open
         -- or at least have a keyboard shortcut to open it
2)  When closing the SE the VW should also close
        -- a keyboard shortcut to close here would also be nice
3)  Keyboard shortcuts typed after clicking in the VW should pass  
through to the SE

The last one of these would really be a welcome addition since it can  
be quite exasperating to click somewhere in the VW during debugging,  
then forget to click in the SE and instead just type a keyboard  
shortcut to step to the next line of script.  The whole script runs  
and blows all the work you just did positioning windows and so forth  
to debug.  This area also brings up the question, why does the  
command-M shortcut to step through a script never work in the out-of- 
the-box McTools.mc stack?  I always have to change this to command-D  
(easier to do with the left hand) and then trap for it in both the VW  
as well as the SE.

On a note of appreciation, I really like the new VW's ability to  
remember not only where I left it on screen, but also the height of  
the fields within it.  I use to add my own handlers for this, too.

Thanks,

Ray Horsley
Developer, LinkIt! Software


On Oct 4, 2006, at 2:25 AM, Ken Ray wrote:

> I have uploaded a new build of the Variable Watcher to the MC_IDE  
> group in
> the Files area (in the Extras folder) that fixes a bug in the VW  
> where you
> would get a "Parameter is not a variable" error if you tried to  
> bring up the
> VW and you had either a variable where there should be a quoted  
> string (like
> "set the decorations of this stack to title") or where you  
> accidentally
> named a variable the same as a reserved word (like "put 123 into  
> tExt").
>
> If you leave the VW open when not debugging, it normally displays the
> globals in the state they were in when you stopped debugging, but they
> didn't update if you changed them subsequent to that. A new feature  
> has been
> added that the VW will update its global list when you pass the  
> mouse over
> any of the fields in the VW.
>
> If you run into any other problems, or have any other suggestions  
> for the
> VW, please let me know.
>
> Ken Ray
> Sons of Thunder Software
> Web site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/
> Email: kray at sonsothunder.com
>
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