Console window suggestions
Console is an outstanding tool Ninox provides users to test code before inserting it anywhere in the DB.
Nevertheless there are a few drawbacks that make it less useful that it could be.
1. Window size
Console has a really small Input Panel (11 lines) and an Output Panel with more than 40 lines (depending on the screen size).
For larger blocks of code, for instance when developing functions, 11 lines is not enough.
We will spend most of the time scrolling up and down to edit our code.
So if we could resize the Input Panel / Output Panel it would be a great help for users to test code.
2. Cursor position
Console window does not show a cursor position field (column and line) as any Formula Field does.
So when we get a message that something is wrong at line X, column Y, we have to count lines and columns to find out where the problem is.
A box showing cursor position (line,column) would be very useful too.
3. Console Output
Console Output Panel shows only the result of the last evaluated expression.
This is fine for small blocks of code.
But for the purpose of debugging larger blocks of code we need to send output from several points in the code block to understand exactly what is going on.
That is not possible now.
So any command or function like print_console(...) to send output to console whenever we need it and to be used anywhere in the code block is a must and would be extremely useful.
4. Comments in code blocks
I already know thave we can have strings to comment code, like the following line:
" ---- This is a comment ---";
Since what matters is the result of the last evaluated expression, because that is what is returned from de execution of the code block, strings can be embedded in the code block and have it as comment lines.
Nevertheless when writing and debugging larger code blocks we need often to mark some lines as comments to prevent them from being executed and see how our code behaves with these lines not being executed.
This is not possible now because most of the time we have double quotes in our code and the interpreter gets confused when placing double quotes at the beggining and end of a line, or even at the start and end of a code block.
If we could have some kind of token like "###" or "///" or whatever you may find suitable to mark the start and end of any number of lines as a comment block that would be a great help for developers.
To mark the start or end of a comment code block we would use a line just with the token.
Hope you agree with these suggestions because I find them extremely useful and a great help for code developers.
Best regards,
Jose
2 replies
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Thanks for you input. We are working on optimising the console tab.
Birger
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Hi,
I can support this statement to 100%.
P L E A S E provide us with a console with some more programming comfort!Many thanks for the otherwise really great NINOX-database!
Yours sincerely
Josef
Content aside
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