[Talk] Ruby Debugger for SketchUp 14+

Jim

I'm not interested in installing a 100+ MB IDE in order to write plugins and to use the debugger efficiently, which is the reason I am playing with getting my editor (vim) to talk to the debugger.

Since the su debugger communicates over a tcp socket, there is a chance of creating an intermediate service between the editor and the debugger. Unfortunately, Notepad++ might require a c/c++ plugin to interface with the SU Debugger.

Dan Rathbun

@jim said:

If Notepad++ can do that, then I've been missing out.

I may be confused with the "bookmark" feature. (But normally a bookmark feature allows giving them names. NPP does not allow giving them names, making them "act" like breakpoints.)

Dan Rathbun

@jim said:

I'm not interested in installing a 100+ MB IDE in order to write plugins and to use the debugger efficiently, ...

Hmmm... I came across Arcadia. It's written in Ruby, and is less than 1MB (~600KB).
It uses Tcl/Tk for GUI elements, so make sure that is installed in your system Ruby.
http://arcadia.rubyforge.org/

jiminy-billy-bob

@jim said:

The debugger will let you:

Stop execution of a Sketchup/Ruby script at some given line. (breakpoint.) Multiple breakpoints can be set across files.

Inspect local and global variable at that line.

Inspect the call stack at that breakpoint.

Step through the following script lines one at a time. Goto 2

Oh now that sounds might interresting!

@jim said:

And if it were only a faster way to do the same thing, wouldn't that be worth investigating?

Sure! I was just trying to understand the whole thing. I never heard of breakpoints before. (My coding knowledge is limited to html/css, js, and a little ruby)

Jim

It appears you (the ide) must maintain the tcp connection to the debugger for the duration of the debugging session. The debugger does not respond if you try to reconnect and send messages after closing the connection.

It seems like you should be able to close and connect to the debugger as long as it is running.

This means any type of Editor -> SketchUp Debugger bridge can only connect once and needs to stay running the duration of the user's debugging activities. I was hoping to use a small script executed from the editor that would connect -> send message -> disconnect to the debugger.

Jim

The SketchUp debugger is logging messages, so having a windows debugger such as DbgView open can be useful.

slbaumgartner

The Readme on Github says that Mac is not supported yet, but the repository contains project files for Xcode and build succeeded on my Mac. However, there is no discussion of where to put the dylib or how to invoke it. I tried putting it with the other dylibs in the Frameworks folder and activating with the command line args as suggested for Windows, but I can't see any evidence that it does anything (SU starts and seems to run as normal...). Has anybody gotten this to work on Mac yet?

Steve

driven

@slbaumgartner said:

Has anybody gotten this to work on Mac yet?

@Steve

been awaiting your return, I only had a brief look...

than ran...
john

tt_su

@slbaumgartner said:

The Readme on Github says that Mac is not supported yet, but the repository contains project files for Xcode and build succeeded on my Mac. However, there is no discussion of where to put the dylib or how to invoke it.

Work in progress. I don't recall right now if you will need a new release of SU for OSX before it will work. I'll check in.

Jim

Do these IDE's somehow notify SketchUp that the file has been modified and needs to be reloaded by SketchUp?

Dan Rathbun

Bugra said they implemented the communication protocol that some of the Ruby debugger gems also implement. Documented (somewhat) here:

http://debug-commons.rubyforge.org/protocol-spec.html

Jim

Here is a demo video of a Notepad++ plugin I am working on for SketchUp Debugger communications.

It is written in Python and requires the PythonScript plugin for Notepad++. The video shows setting a breakpoint, inspecting local variables, and stepping through the script.

There's no user interface and I use a lot of typed commands, so it is best to watch the video in high quality and full screen.

Just made it to show possibilities/measure interest/gather feedback.

jiminy-billy-bob

Nice! Can't wait to try this

Dan Rathbun

@jim said:

Here is a demo video of a Notepad++ plugin I am working on for SketchUp Debugger communications.

I'd much rather stay with using NP++.

Why Python, and perhaps GitHub it ?

Dan Rathbun

@dan rathbun said:

Bugra said they implemented the communication protocol that some of the Ruby debugger gems also implement. Documented (somewhat) here:

http://debug-commons.rubyforge.org/protocol-spec.html

I am wondering if this ruby debug ide protocol is based on (or compatible with,)
the DBGp protocol: http://www.xdebug.org/docs-dbgp.php#description

slbaumgartner

Whimper! Bugra (or whoever) please, please! We Mac users are dying of envy....

Steve

tt_su

@slbaumgartner said:

Whimper! Bugra (or whoever) please, please! We Mac users are dying of envy....

Soon. We need it as well - we share your pain.

Btw, have you checked the GitHub repo lately?

Dan Rathbun

Nothing seems to have changed in at least a month (and that seems to be only the readme.)

If you have something to announce, come on out and say it.

Jim

@dan rathbun said:

Why Python, and perhaps GitHub it ?

Why Python? Python just seemed like my best chance for success for a proof-of-concept compared to the alternative ways to extend Npp.

The Python code is currently posted on this Gist. I'm sure it's ugly as I don't know exactly what I'm doing in Python yet - I am learning as I go about Python, PythonScript, and the Npp environment. I'll put it in a proper Github repo when it's more stable.

Maybe there's a Pythonista around who would be willing to help out?

This is also a bit complicated to setup - I had to compile my own version of PythonScript.dll from the latest GitHub source to get the margin click callback to return the correct values.

One big downside of PythonScript is it appears to have weak support for creating Toolbars in Npp, so creating a good user interface may be a problem.

I would love for this to be written in c++ to take advantage of more features of Npp, but that would require learning c++ first and that takes time.

@dan rathbun said:

I am wondering if this ruby debug ide protocol is based on (or compatible with,)
the DBGp protocol

No, DBGp is incompatible.

The commands that the SketchUp Debugging Server accepts can be found by interpreting these regular expressions.

Dan Rathbun

Yea.. I agree I poked around in the NPP Plugin "How to" today. The C++ stuff is too complex to learn quickly.

I did not find any Ruby binding, so Python would be the next best thing. It is similar to ruby (without all the "end"s.)

I tried first to install PythonScript in my %AppData% path where all my other NPP plugins are installed, but got an error when trying to open the Python Console. (Something about Python being an ANSI version, and incompatible with the Unicode NPP.)

Installing it in the %ProgramFiles% path works (as the doc stated that is where to install it.) So it will require Admin privileges.