Flutter-intellij: update the behavior of the run and debug buttons

[devoncarew]

We should update the behavior of the run and debug buttons to address some UX issues:

• [x] the run button should be changed from executing flutter run --release to flutter run (just like the current debug button) (#445)
• [x] the run button should not set breakpoints and not break on exceptions (it's the same as the debug button, but without debuggability)
• [ ] we contribute a hot reload and a restart app button to the run toolbar; these should likely be visible when the currently selected config is hot reloadable (or when the device chooser is visible)
• [x] when an app is executing, the run and debug buttons become disabled (the launch config reports that it can't run if any running apps were launched from that config)

[mit-mit]

Details of the 'lightning bolt' behavior are discussed in https://github.com/flutter/flutter-intellij/issues/230

[alexander-doroshko]

Make sure that you do not modify Run/Debug icons and behavior if currently selected run configuration in the combo box is not the one that you want to hot reload or whatever. It is a valid use case:

• select 'MyFlutterApp1 (debug)' in the combo box, Debug it
• select not related 'Some Java Server' run config, Run or Debug it
• etc.
• select 'MyFlutterApp1 (debug)' again. Hot reload it

[sethladd]

Nice! Thanks for writing out this plan. sgtm, looking forward to trying it out.

[devoncarew]

@pq, possibly for 0.1.5?

[mit-mit]

Closing #230 as a covered by this, so including the Android Studio screenshot here:

[pq]

I did some digging into this on Friday and I see some challenges on the UI front. In particular, it doesn't look like hijacking the run/debug button icons and tooltips is straightforward. I'm guessing this is a place where AS hacked the platform.

Curious if @alexander-doroshko has any thoughts?

(EDIT: one thought is to go through the ActionManager and update the presentations for the run and debug actions. Not sure how fragile that'd be though.)

[alexander-doroshko]

I didn't look into AS source code, but I haven't heard of legal ways to manipulate Run/Debug icons, tooltips, etc.

[alexander-doroshko]

You might be interested in looking how Android plugin in IntelliJ IDEA behaves. It may have different UI tricks than AS itself.

[devoncarew]

We moved part of this issue out specifically to target 0.1.6: https://github.com/flutter/flutter-intellij/issues/445

Moving to On Deck, but we should spend time during the 0.1.6 release to explore customizing the buttons.

[devoncarew]

Just some continued discussion: the remaining issue is one of discoverability of the reload and restart buttons. We could solve this a few ways - updating the icons for the main run and debug buttons, adding additional icons to the toolbar when we're running, ...

[pq]

Regarding discovery, I've been experimenting w/ adding buttons to the main toolbar. It looks like maybe the best we can do is add to the end (or start) of a button group. Here's what it looks like if we add them to the end of the RunGroup:

Might be a good start anyway.

Curious what you guys think.

@devoncarew @mit-mit

[devoncarew]

I like it! Logically in terms of ordering, they should likely go between the starting buttons (run and debug) and the stop button, in order to follow a lifecycle-like order. Sounds like that's not immediately feasible; perhaps we put a new JSeparator between the stop button and the reload+restart, in order to make the ordering not seem random? Or at least, something else to experiment with, to find out which feels most natural.

[mit-mit]

Yeah, looks pretty good if we add a separator:

:

[pq]

Cool. A separator is easy.

Looking now at refactoring the way that state is tracked so we get the desired enablement semantics which is a little trickier...

[sethladd]

What's the thinking for how to guide developers over to the green+bolt button (which I think is Hot Reload?). Do we gray-out the green button after you initially run the app?

Is it possible to swap icons of the button (changing green run button to green+bolt once you have an app up and running) ?

[pq]

Is it possible to swap icons of the button (changing green run button to green+bolt once you have an app up and running) ?

Unfortunately, no. Or at least not easily. Once active, the button gets a little dot.

Actively exploring other refinements. Needless to say, ideas welcome!

[sethladd]

Gray-out the green run button once pressed?

[devoncarew]

I updated the main description above to list what we've already done here and what more is planned.

[pq]

Screenshot with snazzy new icons.

Still WIP but closing in!