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#1 2007-12-20 22:29:41

mickchang
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-09-01
Posts: 9

Start Single Stepping mode

I tell my students to use this all the time to understand what their code is doing, and it is a great tool.  Based on seeing how my students use the stepping mode, I think it would be even better if there is a "manual stepping mode" button where code stepping and stage viewer run is controlled by the user clicks--a little like how Jeroo does it.  The current single stepping mode function often times go too fast or too slow for the students to see what is happening, and as a result they avoid making more complicated codes.  Another cool thing that could be implemented is a "speed up" button or slider to go fast to the point of interest for debugging.
Is it possible to implement these functionalities?

Thanks, and keep up the good work!  My students appreciate it!

Mick Chang
Houston, Texas

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#2 2007-12-21 00:50:34

Jens
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-06-04
Posts: 1000+

Re: Start Single Stepping mode

The 'manual stepping' mode is something I often wish for myself, thanks for suggesting this, I'm all for it!

I also like your idea of a speed-up slider to allow changing the single-step speed while the project is being executed. I think that's a very clever idea and much easier and more intuitive to understand than, say, setting breakpoints into the code!


Jens Mönig

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#3 2008-06-15 11:33:47

s_federici
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-12-18
Posts: 500+

Re: Start Single Stepping mode

I completely support the idea of a manual single stepping mode. The current single stepping animation doesn't work very much for me. Also the speed slider is a good idea but... breakpoints would be really welcome!!!!

Last edited by s_federici (2008-06-15 11:34:04)

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#4 2009-06-24 22:34:36

Fyxen
Scratcher
Registered: 2009-06-24
Posts: 12

Re: Start Single Stepping mode

Possible workarounds until we  get real breakpoints:

Inserting "Wait Until Key z Pressed" makes an effective breakpoint if you only have to pause one script.  You can use it with multiple scripts at the same time, but it will result in synchronization changes that won't occur in the running program.

You can do conditional breakpoints similarly by encasing the Wait command in an appropriate If statement.  This is nice for loops where the problem develops later. and you don't want to press z a few hundred or thousand times to get to it.    A special case of this would be to make the if condition a key press itself.  This allows you to stop the loop manually, then restart it at your leisure.

Either of these techniques with the single stepping feature would at least allow you to run the program at full speed until you got to the point of interest and then start single stepping before resuming.

Inserting a "Stop All" will let you stop everything at a critical point.  Unfortunately I don't think you can resume after stopping, to move on you'd have to remove one stop, insert another later, and try again.  Perhaps our developers can just give us a "resume" button to go with the stop button and command?

A way to show and hide the block of variables we're watching for debug purposes as a group would be nice too.

regards to all, Fyxen

Last edited by Fyxen (2009-06-24 22:36:53)

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#5 2009-06-25 17:39:38

fruit
Scratcher
Registered: 2009-04-24
Posts: 1000+

Re: Start Single Stepping mode

*sniffs air*

What's that I smell? A bumped thread?


@savi3000 | hcsmp.com

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#6 2009-07-31 02:35:51

billyedward
Scratcher
Registered: 2008-01-03
Posts: 500+

Re: Start Single Stepping mode

You know, you can set the speed. Just shift-click on extras, and click on 'set single stepping speed'. With regards to your slider and 'self paced' suggestions, I think that those will be fairly easy to implement. I will see if I can get them into the next version of Streak.


"I'd love to change the world, but they haven't released the source code yet."
Check out the latest version of Streak --> http://billy.scienceontheweb.net/Streak

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