Issues with Corona Editor

Solar2D Corona Editor
#1

I’m trying to learn how to use the Corona Editor 1.0 debugger but have run into some problems.  Are these bugs or am I not understanding how this is supposed to work?

  1.  First, I tried in ST2, and all the debugger menu items are grayed out.  I uninstalled and reinstalled the CE package and the menu items are still grayed out.   I installed ST3(beta) and the CE debugger features are available.  Is CE is supposed to work in ST2 ?

  2.  In ST3, If I turn on the debugger, my project runs slooooooowwwwwwwwly and eventually chokes to death.   I don’t set any breakpoints (just run again after it breaks at the first line), I’ll get a few stuttering starts on the first screen, then everything just freezes.  Waiting for a few minutes and it might choke past another few frames and freeze again.  Eventually it’s just dead and I have to force quit the simulator.  It never even completed loading the first scene.  I’ve never used a debugger before, so perhaps I’m missing some basic usage info, but I don’t see how this could be useful if this is expected behavior.  (My project is large so perhaps it is overwhelming the debugger, but in that case what use is it if it can’t be used in a mature project?)

  3.  If I hide and then re-show the build panel all the previous text from the build panel/console output is erased.  This has actually been my one major beef with Sublime, that whenever I do a search for text the build panel closes to show the search input text box and I lose all my console output.  During development there’s usually a bunch of info in the console that I need to help me track down  bugs or whatever so I am often forced to make a choice, do I retain my console output, or do I perform a search?  I realize this isn’t a Corona Editor specific issue, it’s more of a feature request to save the contents of the build panel so when it reopens it displays prior output.  I noticed when the debugger is used a new window is created for the console output, so perhaps it’s possible to have such a window available even when not debugging so I can both search for text and continue to view the console’s contents.

Other features of CE are great:  Links to docs, autocomplete, snippets, love the show unsaved changes.  So while it is already quite useful, I would also love to be able to use the debugger.

-Stephen

#2

Ah - same issues as we are having with ST3 and debugging.

#3

  1.  The debugger does work in ST2.  The debugger items should be available (not greyed out) when you have a file open that can be run in the debugger, i.e. is a main.lua itself or for which Corona Editor can find a main.lua.  Perhaps greying out the menu items is not the way to go and just displaying an error if the context isn’t correct would be better.

  2.  I haven’t noticed the performance issues you mention but perhaps there’s something about your project that is triggering behavior we need to address.  Have you tried running your project in the command line debugger that has been supplied with the Simulator for a long time?  Does that perform better?  Turning the question around, what Lua debugger does perform well with your project?

  3.  Yes, I noticed the window clearing behavior while testing the beta of 1.0 and noted it but haven’t had a chance to get to the bottom of it.  I like your rationale for keeping the output around longer and I’ll what I can do.

#4

@Perry,

  1.  I tried ST2 using the same main.lua of my project that works with ST3.  Maybe CE is colliding with some other plugin?  I have installed several other plugins into ST2 to help my Corona development, such as Changetracker, ComputerCraft Package, Pretty JSON, and Tag.   I guess I can just use ST3, although it is still in beta.

  2.  I tried the command line debugger a looong time ago when I was just starting out with Corona.  I don’t remember how slow it was although I don’t think it felt like it was crashing Corona the way this current debugger feels.  I also previously tried the debugger briefly in Glider and it didn’t seem to have noticeable performance issues as I recall.

  3. It would be really great if you can figure out a solution to keeping the console output around longer.  I don’t know what kind of control you have over Sublime’s layout but even just keeping the build window open when doing a find or find in files would be all I would need.  Maybe there’s already a way to do this but I haven’t found it. 

#5

I don’t see any performance problems with ST3 and debugging. I have to admit that I haven’t used it too much, but I set breakpoints thoughout my code and everything went smoothly. I don’t have any other plugins installed yet though… only Corona Editor.

#6

Ah - same issues as we are having with ST3 and debugging.

#7

  1.  The debugger does work in ST2.  The debugger items should be available (not greyed out) when you have a file open that can be run in the debugger, i.e. is a main.lua itself or for which Corona Editor can find a main.lua.  Perhaps greying out the menu items is not the way to go and just displaying an error if the context isn’t correct would be better.

  2.  I haven’t noticed the performance issues you mention but perhaps there’s something about your project that is triggering behavior we need to address.  Have you tried running your project in the command line debugger that has been supplied with the Simulator for a long time?  Does that perform better?  Turning the question around, what Lua debugger does perform well with your project?

  3.  Yes, I noticed the window clearing behavior while testing the beta of 1.0 and noted it but haven’t had a chance to get to the bottom of it.  I like your rationale for keeping the output around longer and I’ll what I can do.

#8

@Perry,

  1.  I tried ST2 using the same main.lua of my project that works with ST3.  Maybe CE is colliding with some other plugin?  I have installed several other plugins into ST2 to help my Corona development, such as Changetracker, ComputerCraft Package, Pretty JSON, and Tag.   I guess I can just use ST3, although it is still in beta.

  2.  I tried the command line debugger a looong time ago when I was just starting out with Corona.  I don’t remember how slow it was although I don’t think it felt like it was crashing Corona the way this current debugger feels.  I also previously tried the debugger briefly in Glider and it didn’t seem to have noticeable performance issues as I recall.

  3. It would be really great if you can figure out a solution to keeping the console output around longer.  I don’t know what kind of control you have over Sublime’s layout but even just keeping the build window open when doing a find or find in files would be all I would need.  Maybe there’s already a way to do this but I haven’t found it. 

#9

I don’t see any performance problems with ST3 and debugging. I have to admit that I haven’t used it too much, but I set breakpoints thoughout my code and everything went smoothly. I don’t have any other plugins installed yet though… only Corona Editor.