[platform-debug-dev] Behaviour of variable expansion

[boxall@xxxxxxxxxx]

One of the plugins we are building has a usability problem with collapsed
variables.

Some variables are global and therefore appear in the Variables view for
every selected stackframe.

These globals tend to be complex and to be useful, the user must expand
them.

The problem is that they are always being collapsed because the stackframes
change on step, run etc. forcing the user to expand these globals after
every step, run etc.

We know that the debug core won't be able to remember expansion of
variables because the stackframes are changing ...

so...

we have a suggestion to help with complex variables.   Add the notion of
"autoExpand" to the variable.   This would allow the debug plugins to
dictate to the variables view that it should expand this variable.

Something like:
     boolean IVariable.autoExpand()

     where "true" means that the Variable view should force expansion of
this variable.

Alan Boxall - IBM Distributed Debugger