Optimization of debugging and recording project.

darkdiver

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We are currently working on optimization of debugging and project recording steps. We have our own ideas, however we would like to get feedback from you, front-end users :-)
We need to know what take most of your time when you create and debug projects. And we would like to know not only big problems, but also the little things that you don't like but often deal with.
What do you think is needed to be optimized in order to create projects more easier and faster?
P.S. We have read your suggestions, and came up with some ideas, but let's just collect them all in this topic.
Take a part, this is really important for all of us :-)
 

Hungry Bulldozer

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I know I could tell it personally, but since it is discussed openly I would do that here.
The most beneficial addon would be a possibility to add actions during debug, like it was in CodeCreator. At least feature to get element properties (Selected element properties tab and action designer). So when you debug your project and it fails by not finding HTML element on the page you are able to check element's parameters and do changes. That's probably the most I like in CodeCreator after coding.
 

hotohori

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During recording, ability to add more search criteria of an element.

During editing, ability to select multiple actions and groups to move them at the same time.

Cheers!
Hoto
 

rostonix

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drvosjeca

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What I would like to see for debugger is same as HB mentioned, but I also have one great suggestion for recorder... It would be nice if we could right-click in field or on element we are searching for and select show in "element tree"... to make it work like firebug extension for example because sometimes when element is not found on auto, and you need to open element tree... it can take time before you find right thing. Right now you get some element properties if you select "to actions designer", but you dont see what is around it, and show in element tree would be great for that.

Dont get me wrong, i use firebug to find what i need, but it would be nice if process wouldnt require jumping here and there.

That is just my suggestion :-)
 

hotohori

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Ha ha, sorry about that.
I meant in Action Designer, currently we can only enter 1 set of Attribute name, Attribute value and Search type. Sometimes I want to find elements using 2 attributes to make the search more accurate. For now I have to remember the 2nd attribute details and add it later in editor after recording is done.

Capture.JPG
 
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hotohori

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+1 to this. :-)

What I would like to see for debugger is same as HB mentioned, but I also have one great suggestion for recorder... It would be nice if we could right-click in field or on element we are searching for and select show in "element tree"... to make it work like firebug extension for example because sometimes when element is not found on auto, and you need to open element tree... it can take time before you find right thing. Right now you get some element properties if you select "to actions designer", but you dont see what is around it, and show in element tree would be great for that.

Dont get me wrong, i use firebug to find what i need, but it would be nice if process wouldnt require jumping here and there.

That is just my suggestion :-)
 

paromi

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+1 this, selection to show in element tree

What I would like to see for debugger is same as HB mentioned, but I also have one great suggestion for recorder... It would be nice if we could right-click in field or on element we are searching for and select show in "element tree"... to make it work like firebug extension for example because sometimes when element is not found on auto, and you need to open element tree... it can take time before you find right thing. Right now you get some element properties if you select "to actions designer", but you dont see what is around it, and show in element tree would be great for that.

Dont get me wrong, i use firebug to find what i need, but it would be nice if process wouldnt require jumping here and there.

That is just my suggestion :-)
 
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bigcajones

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Do I need to whip out my Ub__t to show you what we would like... :D I agree with HB that would be perfect. To be able to debug until template stops like in CC and then continue recording from there. It would be quick and easy to test different sites with the same platform if we were able to do this.

Thanks for asking us by the way.
 

shabbysquire

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Would like to automatically clear previous log when performing another debug (use a tick box for example.)
 
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drvosjeca

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Another thing I would like to see is that when you wanna edit something like table processing, list processing or specially C#... It would be great if these windows could be resized, that is specially useful for C# action block... this way for example you have a lot of code, or you need to sort a lot of variables for table processing...it is just anoying scrolling it up and down, and searching for right place/thing...
 
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Kepperbes

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DarkDiver Hungrybulldozer, Bigjacones, and DJ have already made wonderful suggestions for debugger. For recording I have a few things that I think are on topic, and would be a great thing to add if not too complicated:

2) Automatically pull values into the action designer attribute value field. When I select 'outertext' for example the attribute field below it should automatically be populated with that value. This saves going over and back copy and pasting in values from the 'select element properties' window.
This would be a definite time saver because I wouldnt have to always type in the attributes for the Outertext, ID, Name fields (or others) because they'd auto-fill.

8-) Mouse emulation. Right now it takes 5 actions to click one button with it and it's completely laborious to setup.

Wouldn't it be a lot better if the mouse emulation worked during the recording process.

So you use the action designer to find whatever you want to click. Select rise, then under the event drop down select a new option 'emulation'. Click 'add to project' and up pops the mouse emulation action window with the X and Y 'from' coordinates automatically filled with the 'LeftInTab' and 'TopInTab' values respectively.

You then enter in the 'to' values e.g X+50 and Y+15, decide if you want normal/equally spread clicks etc and click 'done', the window disappears and the action is added to the recording. When you stop recording your mouse emulation action is added to your editor, done in one action.
I know that the above may be considered slightly off topic, but as you can see, its being suggested to be added in DURING the recording process, and would save those of us who use mouse emulations TONS of time when integrating that into our templates.

I'm really enjoying all of the attention you've been paying to the community lately DarkDiver, your presence has definitely been noticed.
 

darkdiver

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Thx everybody!
Just to clarify
DarkDiver, Hungrybulldozer, Bigjacones, and DJ have already made wonderful suggestions for debugger. For recording I have a few things that I think are on topic, and would be a great thing to add if not too complicated:
2) Automatically pull values into the action designer attribute value field. When I select 'outertext' for example the attribute field below it should automatically be populated with that value. This saves going over and back copy and pasting in values from the 'select element properties' window.
This would be a definite time saver because I wouldnt have to always type in the attributes for the Outertext, ID, Name fields (or others) because they'd auto-fill.
Do you mean it should be automatically populated like Get but for Set
http://screencast.com/t/dDxvzSzj9C ?
 

drvosjeca

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yeah, just dont make it for every selection because things like outerhtml can have huge chunk of code in it, and it woud not be smart to get it autopopulated like that :D
 
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Kepperbes

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Mankush

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Mouse emulation is needed for sure. keyboard, too.
It should be able to really emulate mouse moving...

Anti-bot scripts are getting harder to crack through.
 

Boxcutter

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Do you mean it should be automatically populated like Get but for Set
http://screencast.com/t/dDxvzSzj9C ?
Just to clarify. What I was saying was in relation to the Attribute name dropdown
and the Attribute value field below it. It should autofill the data so if I select name
it should show the relevant name data in the value field without the need to go over
and back to the select element properties window. See image below.

http://i.imgur.com/FYdyR.png

Ok since you did ask I have a lot of other very useful ideas that would make life a lot easier.

1)
Boxcutter сказал(а):
Easily use the profile variables in the action designer value box quickly. Right click in the action designer value field and use profile variables just like you can in the normal browser window.
So basically you could right click and choose for example Age and that would work the very same way it does in the normal browser window i.e the value gets added e.g 24 and when it's viewed in the editor after you are done recording it will have the {-Profile.Age-} macro.

For reference. A quick screen cap of the limited right click options in the action designer window - http://i.imgur.com/fO2zG.png

2) There should be a option to tell PM to default to form no. -1. I always change it to -1 so I can find fields properly and the temp will still work regardless of what happens due to proxies etc so it's another thing I'd like to cut out.

3) I would love to see the option to ignore the document no, something like -1. Why? Because if a site uses dynamic ID's you have to add several actions just to loop through different numbers to post the content. If the document ID could be ignored then if you find the content area it will always fill it because it wouldn't matter if the document ID is 0;0 0;1 0;1;0 or anything else.

4)
Boxcutter сказал(а):
We should be able double click the inputs/outputs connector on one action and drag it to another instead of having to delete it and pull another one.
5)
Boxcutter сказал(а):
A variable for the action id. I was going to suggest a new log action so you can gather all the log errors for each template easily but the bad end will work fine. All that needs to be added is the ability to output the action ID when a action fails. How useful would it be to be able to output a log file for each of your temps that would look something like this:

{-variable.site-};{-action.ID-}

Anybody creating any platform temps etc would love this. You could run your temp in Zennoposter and then go through your template log file to see what sites failed and then have the exact action ID for each of them to find what action it failed on in PM.

Other useful variables to do with actions that could be added are {-action.comment-} and {-action.group-}.

{-action.comment-} would output the default action comment but if you are using your own comments it would output that instead. This would make it easier to see straight away where your temp is having problems in your log file.

{-action.group-} would output the action group name. If none exists then it would be blank.

Example log output using {-variable.site-};{-action.group-};{-action.comment-};{-action.ID-}

http://www.google.com;Add Content;Enter Article Title;7d2cf1c2-c0da-4d3b-aed8-47c69500e2a2
http://www.another.com;Email Processing;Click Confirm Link;aa0f0ad8-89d8-485a-b543-f4dd24badea3
I added this one in here because it's error log/debugging related as well. A easy error log system as described above = easier future debugging/fixing, especially when it comes to platforms.

6) All the debugger ideas mentioned before. The ability to go back and forth through actions, change data in actions on the fly, set breakpoints without having to stop it again, connect and move actions just like we can outside of debug mode and so on.
 
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alain26

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The main change I'd like to see in ZP is the ability to change a template for debug mode and could go back to test changes to avoid retesting one template from the beginning each time that there is an error.
Thanks :D
 

shabbysquire

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The main change I'd like to see in ZP is the ability to change a template for debug mode and could go back to test changes to avoid retesting one template from the beginning each time that there is an error.
Thanks :D
Also instead of unlinking the start from an action, have the ability to create a start (right-click & choose) anywhere in the sequence?
 

rostonix

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Bump
 

rostonix

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Using custom user agents during recording.
 

Hungry Bulldozer

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nevadahsot

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chris007

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A bug I belive:
1) My biggest problem right now, on 4.3.6 and 4.3.7 is the following:
Starting and stopping the dubugger sometimes takes a really long time: ProjectMaker.exe becomes "Not Responding" in resource monitor for most of that time. The CPU goes up to about 50% (so it almost maxes 1 CPU core of 2).
Stating can take from 5 secs to 55 secs and stopping from 5 secs to 40 secs. Also, when it PM move slow it can take a long time (2-5 secs) to open configuration windows for actions and the mouse spins the wait circle for that time.
I am running windows 7 x64 in Parralels on a Mac Pro, on 2 xeon cores at 2.66 ghz and with 5gb of ram.

Sometimes Project Maker runs ok, and for no apparent reason it becomes really slow. It's really frustrating to wait 1 minute for debugging to start and almost another minute when I stop or the script finishes.

This problem is intermittent and I could not see a pattern for its appearance.


Suggestions for Project Maker:
2) When I double click on an action, the window that pops up show always show in the visible work space, not in a default position relative to the clicked action.
I have this problem when double clicking on actions close to the right side of the work space and the window pops up partially or completely outside the visible area. I then have to scroll to the right to see the window witch is a little annoying.

3) When I want to modify an action's comment, the window that pops up should always have the text in the edit field selected so I can just start typing a new comment or press left or right arrows to deselect the text and modify it. If the comment field is empty the text field should be selected, waiting for imput.
Sometimes the text is selected when I open the comment edit but not always - maybe its a bug?
This behavior should be present for all pop up windows that contain only one edit field like IF Logic and maybe others I can't remember right now.

4) When I move a group that has a custom comment and I drop the group, it jumps up the height of the comment text. So if I want to align it to another group or action I need to drop it one position lower so when it jumps up it is in the right place.
For groups without comments moving works properly.

5) When I move an action properties edit window, a copy of that window remains in the original place and only disappears when I drop it to the new location. I don't see the point of keeping a copy of the window in the original place. It is a little distracting.

6) Multiple action properties edit windows can be opened at the same time. Only one should have "focus" - the last one opened or the last one selected. This is important because it would be really convenient to be able to close the "focused" window with the Esc key and not have to click on the tiny red close button.
I find myself pressing the Esc key almost every time I want to close one of those windows and then I see the UI doesn't work this why (yet :-).

7) In the ribbon, the Cancel and Repeat buttons should be named Undo and Redo maybe.

8-) When I hover the mouse over the Toolbar in the right, I should be able to scroll the Toolbar, even if the "focus" is on the work space (as it usually is). At the moment I need to click on one of the Toolbar subsection titles or on the scroll bar itself before I'm able to scroll.


These are my suggestions for now. Hope some or all of them find their way into the next Zenno versions. :-)
 
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joemania

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For the debugger, when i'm debugging a project with "input settings" it's pain in the ass for values with multiple text lines. We can assign default values, but sometimes it's not enough.

It would be awesome if we could "fill in the preview in input settings" and the debugger would read that. So we can fully test it.



As for input settings we need dropdown. + Inport Export function. Where u can "import projects with input settings and it will auto fill all fields. (i know this has nothing to do with debugger) but when debuging, we could "imort are test settings, and work on the bot without changing everytime the default fealds to test.

Same function in zennoposter ofcourse.
 

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