Display table content at runtime and more

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lazi
Posts: 625
Joined: Thu Feb 24, 2011 11:08 pm

Display table content at runtime and more

Post by lazi »

As your Hollywood project gets bigger and bigger it takes more and more time to overview the complex data structures invented yesterday :)
The flexible way of storing data is a very good aspect of Hollywood, however debugging your script with heavily nested variables are time consuming and can be very nasty.

VvV is born from the desire to look complex data structures in a well presented way while the program runs.
VvV is stand for Various Variable Viewer, and it can open a real window to your variable data in your running script.
It is not just an ordinary debug output. It is a live broadcasting of your variable values.

Before I can show you what is it all about, I would like to urge you to try it and pay for it with your feedback. It is not finished, nor complete and obviously not bug free, so take your turn and tell me how can it ruin your script, your work, your machine, your life :)

Let's look at the first slide, where you can see a playful little test script, which does the following:
Image
- prints a welcome message
- prints a random binary number to the screen
- and draw a friendly red box to the screen

It repeats this interesting function five times per a second and additionally counts that cycles.

Parameters of the job are held in a prefs table where you can easily identify each meaning of the key-values pairs.


The second slide shows a moment of the running script.
Image
Have you got the scene from Matrix, where Tank looked the Matrix Blanker and knew what happens inside the running program? Shortly you will be feel the same!


Just check in the next slide the commented lines which injects the Matrix feeling to your script.
Image



Now we run the same script with VvV:
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You can see the original script is running as before, but a window opened which shows... hey! it shows the content of the prefs table!
You can browse it, refresh any item to see the current value, stop/start script events. (Currently only the intervals are effected.)
And the script is running!



If you still have your mind, it will blow if you see this:
Image
Slowly double click on an item and you can edit the value of a table item of the RUNNING SCRIPT!
Still can't beleive it myself :)

Ok download it http://www.kezdobetu.hu/hollywood/VvV.lha here and take this post as the documentation.

In the archive you will find these:
- table_view.function (the function you should include)
- VvV_example.hws (to try it fast)
- hoodlum_VvV.hws (the Turrican3 cracktro script included with VvV and changed the display size to a better view)

Bye for now!

Ohh, you have to have 6.1 of Hollywood to tinker with.
Bugala
Posts: 1168
Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2010 7:11 pm

Re: Display table content at runtime and more

Post by Bugala »

This is very useful thing. Would be better however, if it would be independent and not reguiring anything else (in this case, RapaGUI), but even as it is, i can see it being very useful and something i have been wanting for a long time. For many a time i have been thinking it would be so useful if you could just see the variables in real time instead of ahving to use debugprint all the time to find them out.
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lazi
Posts: 625
Joined: Thu Feb 24, 2011 11:08 pm

Re: Display table content at runtime and more

Post by lazi »

@Bugala:

I do not see RapaGUI is a problem here, because it needs only in the testing/development phase. If you would think that something similar should be in the main Hollywood stuff, then I think that would increase footprint unnecessary.

However if advanced debug features will be included sometimes into Hollywood, that should be in a separate debug version.
Bugala wrote:but even as it is, i can see it being very useful and something i have been wanting for a long time.
You are welcome! :)
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airsoftsoftwair
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Location: Germany
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Re: Display table content at runtime and more

Post by airsoftsoftwair »

Hehe, that is some truly creative work here Lazi.... it really shows the magic that can be done with Hollywood and its addons :)
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lazi
Posts: 625
Joined: Thu Feb 24, 2011 11:08 pm

Re: Display table content at runtime and more

Post by lazi »

You don't say! :P
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