Problems with new GDB toolbar

[Nick Roberts]

Kim F. Storm writes:

 > However, I find some of the new icon a bit confusing, and I
 > notices some minor problems with it.

 I agree entirely. I don't pretend they're all ideal. Some have
 been taken from the Insight debugger by Cygnus/RedHat. I've
 made up the others myself. They're meant to be a starting point
 and I will feed back opinion on this mailing list to the
 graphic designer(s) who might provide new ones.
 
 > After first starting gdb, the first icon I clicked on
 > (to get things going) was the [Go] icon.  It resulted in
 > a the following error:
 > 
 >   gud-format-command: Wrong type argument: stringp, nil
 > 

 I can see the ambiguity. My reasoning was that the gdb command is `run' not
 `go'. And that `go' being the opposite of `stop' gave a reasonable pair of
 icons for the tasks of removing/setting breakpoints.

 > Well, I started the program with the [Run] icon, and now wanted to
 > install a breakpoint in the code... so I clicked on the [Stop] icon.

 Stopping execution is exactly what the Insight debugger uses it for. But I
 didn't. :-)

 > It didn't work, so I did C-c C-z to stop the program...
 >
 > I used C-c C-b to set the breakpoint, and then clicked on [Go]
 > to continue exection...  and it removed the breakpoint.
 >
 > Ok, now a small bell rang, and I took the time to look at the tooltips;
 > [Stop] means "Set Breakpoint" and [Go] means "Clear breakpoint"...  

 I do think that the tooltips should be the first thing to look for with a new
 set of icons.

 > IMO, the [Stop] button should send a stop signal to the process, 

 That sounds sensible.

 > and the [Go] button should do the equivalent of "continue". 

 I prefer the current button for "continue". It seems intuitive and is part of
 a set controlling execution.

 > And then you should add new buttons for Set and Clear breakpoint;
 > I would recommend a "red bullet" (with no text) to set a breakpoint,
 > and the same "red bullet" with an "X" over it to clear the breakpoint.

 This metaphor is a bit lost on me but I have seen it before.

 > Also, most of the icons (except [Run]) should be "shaded" when the
 > program isn't running.  Also, the [Run] tooltip should be changed to
 > "Restart program" when the program is running.

 I don't think this can be done in gud.el. However, I think it can in
 gdb-ui.el in which gdb is started with the command `gdba'. This is the file
 which I've put most work into and has got a lot more new features (like
 breakpoint icons in the margin, stack frames etc).

 > Finally, when the gud buffer exists, the GDB toolbar seems to be used
 > as the default toolbar for modes which uses the default toolbar.
 > That's pretty annoying.

 I don't know what the default toolbar is but I can't get the GDB toolbar in
 any buffer that has gud-minor-mode set to nil. Even a buffer in fundamental
 mode seems to have its own toolbar. Can you explain ?

Nick