I'd vote for the Explorer too, but I'd prefer to keep the name Inspector and the action Inspect it. On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 6:32 PM, David Pennell <pennell.david@gmail.com> wrote:

We currently have both "inspect" and "explore". It would be nice to have one tool. I'd vote for "explore" as a base with some enhancements to pick up the useful features from "inspect". -david _______________________________________________ Pharo-project mailing list Pharo-project@lists.gforge.inria.fr http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project

On Wed, Dec 03, 2008 at 10:26:30PM -0600, David Pennell wrote:

I agree. Just to be clear - I use both because neither does all I need. Explorer is my default choice, but if I need to look at the innards of a String, I launch an Inspector. It seems like it would be easy enough to fix these in Explorer and then make that the default inspector.

I'm just returning to Squeak after 8 years and wondering if there are other reasons folks use Inspector instead of Explorer.

- Inspectors poll objects every 2 seconds or so, and the display updates when variables change - You can modify ivars from the inspector, but not from the explorer -- Matthew Fulmer -- http://mtfulmer.wordpress.com/

On Wed, Dec 03, 2008 at 11:59:10PM -0600, David Pennell wrote:

You can modify iVars in Explorer, but it doesn't update the display.

How do you do that? In inspector, you select the ivar in the top-left pane, edit the value in the top-right pane, and press alt-s. I didn't know explorer had anything similar. -- Matthew Fulmer -- http://mtfulmer.wordpress.com/

(2 @ 3) exploreselect the root type x:= 4 in the pane at the bottom and control/command-s inspect/explore the root (or x) to confirm that the new value has been changed. selecting any object in the explorer sets "self" for the workspace pane. On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 12:15 AM, Matthew Fulmer <tapplek@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, Dec 03, 2008 at 11:59:10PM -0600, David Pennell wrote:

...

You can modify iVars in Explorer, but it doesn't update the display.

How do you do that?

In inspector, you select the ivar in the top-left pane, edit the value in the top-right pane, and press alt-s.

I didn't know explorer had anything similar.

-- Matthew Fulmer -- http://mtfulmer.wordpress.com/

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Ok, well let me comment about a few usablity issues. Explorer is a heavy weight inspection book, you have it, inspect and don't forget basicInspect. When working with objects that are subclassed off of ProtoObject like the objective-c class I ended up with dragging lots of methods from Object into the subclass to support Explore. Lastly when dealing with complex objects with twisty interconnects, like in a Sophie book structure Explorer would cheerfully be helpful and run off to visual show lots of things likely forever... requiring a cmd-interrupt to seize back control. Ensuring there is a way to do basic inspect would be helpful in rare cases then. On 3-Dec-08, at 8:26 PM, David Pennell wrote:

I agree.

Just to be clear - I use both because neither does all I need. Explorer is my default choice, but if I need to look at the innards of a String, I launch an Inspector. It seems like it would be easy enough to fix these in Explorer and then make that the default inspector.

I'm just returning to Squeak after 8 years and wondering if there are other reasons folks use Inspector instead of Explorer.

-david

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