Possibility of bringing robust debug capabilities natively into App Inventor

[Kumaraswamy]

Hi Evan Patton — happy winter break (I actually would not want to disturb you)

I have been exploring the App Inventor system framework where I was able to figure ways to intercept blocks to introduce debugging capabilities and I was able to do this using an extension.

I also recently was able to get it working in the REPL environment.
It worked for Component Blocks, properties, procedures, event etc (and also somewhat native blocks like Text, List etc). It was also able to create a back trace showing the first origin of error.

Would it be possible to revisit the attempt for introducing robust debugging capabilities in App Inventor?

Since App Inventor relies on modified Kawa libraries for Scheme execution, it would be best to implement it at the base level?

What are your opinions on this? To best implement it, it would also need an UI in the blocks interface. I would like to create an experimental App Inventor project on this.

Catch runtime error / Identify the blocks that cause it

We have explored the possibility of implementing more robust debugging capabilities in App Inventor. However, none of the attempts to do so have obtained significant traction. If the resources become available to tackle this further I would be glad to do so.

@ewpatton

"If the resources become available to tackle this further I would be glad to do so."

Is App Inventor open to this contribution? It could require some guidance from the App Inventor team.

AI2LiveDebug: Helps tracing problems and runtime errors

AI2 Debug This tool makes it easier to find out where errors happen in your app by giving you a clear list of the traces leading up to the error. With the Live Debug feature, you can also trace the application's actions. Like when ButtonClick event is triggered, it will be logged accordingly and displayed live. Why extension? Normally when there is a runtime error in your application, AppInventor dosent show you much information like the trace map, it only shows a message telling what's wrong. …

[ewpatton]

More debugging capability for App Inventor is something that has been on my mind for quite a while. Here's a design doc I wrote back in 2017 that explored how we might want to implement breakpoint and step functionality into the system if you'd like to read more.

Proposal: Debugging Tools for App Inventor