While using Gamma intensely on a rather large project, we have noticed and come to loath the error reporting of VL.
While it is nice that it can jump to an error, when you have a lot of dependencies and different interconnected files it can become unwieldy. Some errors are easy to find, others are a bit like playing Where’s Waldo (a pin that does not exist any more, even a missing node in a large patch). Things like missing nodes and pins should be highlighted way more than they are now!
The worst kind of course is the circular type of error, where it is not even clear where the error exists and what it might be.
What would be great would be a separate panel, like a console, that just displays all errors and offers some functions like jumping to the error (if it can be located precisely). If not they should be shown there.
The same goes for the dependency errors, where wrong versions are referenced or a dependency is missing. When simply opening a file, you cannot tell that a dependency is missing. You have to click the file name first to see Dependencies in Red. Why does the red colour not propagate all the way to the file name and show it in red as well?
A central place for all errors would be much cleaner rather than having to endlessly click through patches to find them.
Another use case that is very hard to debug: Changing the name of an operation, but then not saving one of the files that uses it. This should be also an error in the console where it just says “Cant find Operation GetName” and it lets you jump to each instance or replace them all at once.
@joreg I am just giving the new Errors and Warnings panel a spin. Great stuff already!
Actually surprising to see how many errors there are, which are not shown in the Patch.
Could you maybe clarify what errors and warnings in the Window mean vs. what red nodes and yellow nodes in the patch mean?
I just played around with it and it seems errors can be general and you cannot locate them in the patch, but you can also have errors in the patch that you can jump to.
Maybe you could add like a little arrow or something on the errors and warnings you can jump to.
It could be something like a small indicator like that, so you can tell you can click on it and you will jump to the error.
For the errors that it cannot jump to, it would be nice if it would at least jump to the Patch.
Last little feedback: In one error message it says “A Property of that name exists already”, but a better error message would be “A Property of the name XYZ exists already”. That makes it easier to track down the error.
All in all I am really happy this is there and I am sure will improve with time. Thanks!
Okay, the Error with the Property that is there twice is extremely hard to spot. Even when you click on the C next to NoteObject and then open Properties its kind of hard to spot.
I think the errors should be highlighted more like:
That way it would be much easier to spot the error.
And finally just now I got a purple error message and it pops up in the Error panel 11 times. I think it should only show once or at least somehow group the same error messages together. You could also show only the first say 3 lines of the error message and make it expandable if we want to see the rest.
