Debug mode
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Most of the different modes that can be triggered from the vertical bar at the top left result in big changes on the screen, making it easy to see what mode you're in. Not so with the Debug mode. The debug mode is just like the edit mode, with only a non-closable debug window added. When first starting to debug, that is very, very confusing.
Wouldn't it be much more sensible if the debug window would be a closable window just like the other windows you can get in edit mode? I used to restart QtCreator to get rid of the window, simply because I did not notice that it was caused by being in a different mode. It seems inconsistent to me to have one window that can not be closed between all those others that can.
To make it easy for everybody, perhaps the closing of the debug window would just return you to edit mode, and the switch back to debug mode would simply reopen the debug window.
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Hm, no idea if that wouldn't be even more confusing, but something like it could be worth a try. Perhaps instead of having a X button to the right of the debug tool bar, it would be better to have a slightly different icon - so it would be at the same place at the X of the other panes, but be a little bit different, and have a tool tip "Switch to Edit Mode" or something.
Any ideas for an icon? -
Maybe use icon like Debug button at left has? Or maybe combination of Edit and Debug buttons?
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Yeah, Jorj provided another good point of view. But because of having two different perspectives I think it should not only automatically open Debug view with debug session start (as it doing now), but also switch back to Edit view with end of debug session.
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I think that would be a good solution. AFAIK, there is no useful information to be had from the debug window anyway after the application has terminated, so there is little point in keeping it visible.
Question is then: does it actually make sense to debug be a mode the way it is now? What would happen if you switch to debug mode? If you switch back to Edit mode at the end of a session, does it make sense to switch to debug mode manually at all? Or do you only switch back to edit mode if that is the mode you were in when you started the debug session to begin with?
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There are valid use cases for switching between Edit Mode and Debug Mode while you are debugging. So yes, I think it makes sense to have them as different modes.
Switching to Edit Mode if you are in Debug Mode at the moment the debugged application finishes, sounds like a possibly reasonable behavior.
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Yeah, I'm voting for leaving two different modes, it makes development and debugging more flexible. I'm thinking that automatic switching should be done to mode that was last. For example, if you were in design view and started debugging than after end of debugging it should switch back to design view. But if you were in edit view, started debugging, manually switched to design view, after it switched back to debug view and finished session than it should switch to design view. Not sure that it is reasonable to switch to such views as project or documentation.