CODECOMPOSER: Unexpected feature of CCS 20.x GUI

This is extremely annoying behavior and makes debugging painful. Could you please boost CCSNXT-2210 priority?

Regards,

Eugene

Eugene K said:

Could you please boost CCSNXT-2210 priority?

I will try. I agree with you that the current behavior is not desirable. However, engineering understandably is reluctant from making IDE changes branching off the main Theia IDE framework and it can take time to upstream our changes.

Hi Ki,

CCS have already branched in undesirable direction form default Theia IDE behavior. We have talked about it on the forum.

In this case, the default behavior is "interfering" with CCS debug functions when user wants to see multiple views and have those views behave in predictable manner as with most of other debuggers. IMHO, this warrants immediate attention to get CCS debugger GUI behavior right.

Regards,

Eugene

Hi Ki,

Recently, I happened to work in VSCode debugging MS Windows executable with GDB. It does not exhibit the same behavior as CCS when I step or hit BP. First of all it properly supports hot keys like F10. F11 etc. depending on context HL source or disassembly. Second, it does not open multiple source files regardless where the focus is. I am not sure why are you stating that undesirable CCS behavior is inherited?

Regards,

Eugene

Eugene K said:

I am not sure why are you stating that undesirable CCS behavior is inherited?

This is my understanding based on discussions with engineering. Perhaps they only meant to say this is a Theia IDE issue and not VS Code. I will need to follow up.

Thank you and add F10/F11 step to disassembly window when focus is on it  :-)

Eugene K said:

Thank you and add F10/F11 step to disassembly window when focus is on it  :-)

I created ticket CCSNXT-2215 for this.

Well, to be completely transparent, the ticket is to specifically add the assembly stepping to the main Run menu, which will then allow specific keyboard shortcuts for the asm step into/over. The way the Disassembly window is implemented, it is not possible to have F10/F11 be context sensitive for the diassembly window. Hence what I described is a compromise.

Yes. VSCode uses different type of views for disassembly and registers. Honestly, CCS registers window is better as long as it does not take over active HL source file where stepping is done. Disassembly hot key stepping is essential for any embedded debugger though.

Eugene

Thank you Eugene and Ki for getting the conversation started re this issue.  The duplicate editor window popping up repeatedly is really impeding progress.  Is there a solution or workaround that can be used prior to waiting for the fall CCS 20.3.0 release date?  I'm using CCS Version: 20.0.2.5__1.6.2, is there a chance that a release or patch is issued prior to 20.3.0?

- mjkottman

I will inform engineering regarding the additional interest in this issue.

Hi Eugene,

Enable the 'Reveal If Open' preference to disable opening new editor window. We will enable this option by default in our next release.

Regards,
Patrick

Hi Patrick,

This does not work. Still opens second editor in active group. I tried adding

to workspace and checking it in CCS GUI. No luck.

Even if it worked, consider the use case when file is not open. It will open new file in active group and when that active group is Registers, we are back to the same issue. IMHO, the Registers window should not be considered as the group in which to open any source file.

Regards,

Eugene

Hi Eugen,

It is not possible to treat Registers window differently once it is docked to the editor area. If the file is not already opened, it will be opened using the active editor group.

Regards,
Patrick

Hi Patrick,

Yes, that's one of the problems with CCS Theia. VSCode isn't doing that but register window is implemented there differently.

IMHO, something should be done. I have not seen this behavior in any other debugger I have ever used. In the end, CCS GUI should be the help to a developer not a collection of workarounds or weird behaviors. 

Regards,

Eugene