Re: [cdt-dev] Removing "Connect" from the Debug view's toolbar

[Marc Khouzam <marc.khouzam@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> On 29.08.2012 22:58, Cortell John-RAT042 wrote:
> > Hm. That one's a harder call to make. I suspect folks use 
> that more frequently than Debug Additional Executable. Just 
> not sure it's often enough that those users will be annoyed 
> by the extra mouse clicks. No opinion on this one :-)
> 
> I would imagine that "Connect" is only more frequently used 
> because to attach to remote process, you first start debug 
> session, and then use 
> "Connect". And that is better handled by automatically 
> invoking "Connect" for remote attach sessions?

For people's info, let's mention that when doing a remote-attach
launch ("C/C++ Attach to Application" and selecting 'gdbserver'
as the Debugger in the Debugger tab), the launch will make the
connection to the target but will not attach to any process.
It is up to the user to manually press the 'Connect' button
and choose a process to attach to.
There are a couple of relevant screenshots in the FAQ under 
"Remote attach launch" in 
http://wiki.eclipse.org/CDT/User/FAQ#How_do_I_debug_a_remote_application.3F

As we move more and more towards advanced debugging features
I think it can be useful to connect to a remote target
without automatically attaching.  For example, with the new
OSResources view the user will be able to inspect information
about the target itself, without needing to attach to a process.
It is with that in mind that I didn't make the 'attach' automatic
for the remote-attach launch.

Now, about the 'Connect' button's use.  With multi-process
debugging, users will make the connection to the remote
target and then manually press 'Connect' to attach to 
one or more processes.  During debugging, the user can
press 'Connect' again to debug more processes, or press
'Disconnect' (which is also in the toolbar) to remove
a process being debugged.  This is the scenario I had 
in mind when I added 'Connect' button to the toolbar;
it worked hand-in-hand with 'Disconnect'.

We can argue that 'Debug new executable' is the
mapping of 'Terminate' and we could put it in the toolbar
also.  The drawback is that this button will be visible
all the time, even for JDT (this is the case for 'Connect'
also).  We didn't like this too much, which is
why we are discussing moving the new button and maybe
'Connect' also, to the context menu.

My big worry is that people doing a remote-attach launch
will connect to the target (which does not attach automatically
to a process), and will then look for the 'Connect' button
and won't find it.  If they don't think to look in the
context-menu, they'll be stuck and won't know how to actually
debug in that case.

I'm starting to think we should keep 'Connect' where it is.
But opinions would be welcomed (if you had the patience to 
read this far ;))

Thanks

Marc