debugger - performance, interface, bugs, etc.

[evancz]

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Performance

The debugger currently unrolls your model into an expando whenever the debug panel is open. This can cause performance issues with very large models:

• Large lists - Debugger causes slowdown when model contains a large list #90, Debugger crash runtime when model consists of a big List String #86, "too much recursion" error in Firefox when debugging is enabled #80
• Large arrays - Maximum call stack size exceeded error with '--debugger' elm-lang/elm-make#145
• Image data - Debugger very slow when model contains base64 images #85

Visuals

• Debugger not taking full advantage of width of window [minor, Expando] #83 - Show more Model based on screen size. Dynamic text layout is probably very expensive.
• Debugger messages need more space for readability #49 - Have a way to show more Msg information
• Debugger controls can get covered by application elements #100 - Controls get covered by elements with a higher z-index
• Return to app initial state in debugger #66 - Have a way to return to initial state before Msgs start
• Remember the opened state for the elm debugger for nested records stored inside dicts #102 - Remember open/closed expando state better
• Group multiple elm-debugger Msg into a single one (and a number) - if they are exactly the same. #79 - Have a way to group related messages (progress in Debugger: Grouping msg #77)
• Debugger issues #111 - Multiple debuggable apps on one page, external styles affect controls

Bugs

• Export of Date does not work right, import fails - Runtime error with Debugger and Date #71, Debugger import does not deserialize dates #53
• Something about detecting bad message types - Export from debugger fails erroneously on types that contain magic strings #97

Subjective

• Debugger expand-arrows can break when the charset is not "utf-8" #52 - If you compile with --debug and embed in your own HTML that does not specify UTF8, things will look weird in the debugger. Maybe there's a way to resolve this.