Intuitive Debugger Beta: A Complete Debugging Overhaul

[cMaster_01 (c_PRO)]

Are there any plans to add multi lines support ? This’ll save a lot of time.

[bitsplicer]

Make a variable tracker, so when you play you get all the variables and contents.

[InfiniteEffect]

Now that clicking a breakpoint in the code editor toggles it’s enable/disable state instead of removing it, is there any way to individually remove breakpoints?

[IceTheOneAndOnly (ice)]

yes.
log message = print()

[HugoBLH]

You can right click on a breakpoint then remove it from the context menu popup.

[BullfrogBait]

The days of using print() for debugging are now behind us. This debugger is beautiful.

[KristinaMoment (Kristina)]

@wravager

(print statement debuggers rise!)

Finally!! With this update I no longer have to do print(“bruh”) to check my code works! Thanks Roblox!!

[good_evening]

I run multiple MOOCs revolving around Roblox Studio. As an instructor, one of the first assignments I give my students is effectively using Roblox Studio’s debugger. Many students struggle with my Roblox Studio debugger unit the most.

One thing I visibly see in many posts in this thread are people willing to omit print statements in favor of breakpoints. I would recommend continuing using print statements for logging purposes.

My grievances of the new Intuitive Debugger:

It is difficult to expand cells to see the raw variables. Previously, double-clicking on an edge of a cell would expand it to view the full text. I would like to double-click the edges to view the raw value of the logical flow of my LuaSourceContainer without having to hover over the value itself:

I would love to be able to bind my Middle Mouse button to instantly remove a breakpoint. Currently, the hotkey context for removing breakpoints can only be binded to keystrokes, not mouse button clicks:

These shortcuts do not work because the built-in text editor takes precedence of the shortcuts.

Overall, I enjoyed the new features incorporated into the debugger. Logically stepping through your code via the call stack instead of having to move over to the “Script” tab is a nice touch.

[blvetitanic]

You guys release better things every day!

[IcyTides]

Hi Qualadore,
Thanks so much for mentioning these issues and for trying out the beta. There are indeed some optimizations that we haven’t yet implemented that should drastically improve the stepping speed, and we will prioritize implementing these optimizations. We will take a look at the error output you have mentioned as well.

[FifthInfinity (Infini)]

tldr: I wish you could step through and place breakpoints in all metatable functions

Wonderful changes. As someone who recently familiarized themself with the current stable debugger, I can say that these are improvements. One thing I have seen that is very helpful is the ability to create breakpoints inside metatable functions. The ability to step through these is a game changer for making more complex creations. I hope this is intended. I seem to be mistaken on this. I am realizing now that its possible to only step through the __call metamethod. I am not sure if this is how previous behavior was or not. I feel the ability to step through all metatable values is very important.

One problem I have noticed is that breakpoints will not function at all when placed on an empty line. I’m not sure if this is intended or a bug that wasn’t too critical to fix before beta testing.

Either way I am very happy with this and will continue to test it in the coming days.

[rogeriodec_games]

About debug windows columns (watch, breakpoint, etc):

1. Studio still doesn’t save column dimensions, when they are changed
2. It should allow you to rearrange the columns
3. It should allow hiding columns

[rogeriodec_games]

1. Not saving the breakpoints!
   If I close the project and reopen it the breakpoints are lost.
2. Studio loses all currently opened script tabs when this beta is active. If I deactivate the beta, Studio is back to its normal behavior.

I appreciate your effort, but with the issues that I and other users have reported, it is currently impossible to get any benefit from this beta.

[Qualadore]

Here’s what I see when I hover over a table with this beta.

Here’s what I see without the beta. I really prefer being able to view expanded tables, so I hope this is an unintentional or temporary change.

That aside, I use the debugger all the time and really appreciate this beta and its potential. Thank you to the team!

[RocketB0ii (Rocket)]

“Rendering stopped for debugging…” kept showing on my screen after turning this thing on and I can’t use the studio, also I can’t turn it off

Edit: I was able to turn it back off, but will anyone know the cause and how to find it so maybe I could turn it back on?

[IcyTides]

Hi Qualadore,
Thanks for pointing this out. We are actively developing expandable tooltips for variables that work with the new debugger UI.

[IcyTides]

Hi rogeriodec_games,
Thank you so much for your feedback. As this new UI is currently in beta, we are still actively working on developing this feature and making it better. I’d like to address each issue you mentioned here individually.

• For Studio saving the column dimensions, this will be added to the beta in about 2 weeks. We have added this functionality, but it takes a while for changes to propagate to users.

• Rearranging the columns sounds like an interesting feature for users to have, and I will talk with our design team about how it would look.

• We do allow hiding columns for this beta, but only for specific windows where we felt like this ability would be crucial, namely where there are optional values users might want to hide. The Breakpoints and Call Stack window in particular have this feature. If you open the menu in the top-right of these windows, you will see a dropdown menu where you can toggle column visibility.

• As for not saving breakpoints and losing currently opening script tabs when enabling and disabling the beta, this is something I cannot reproduce on my instance of Studio, and I would ask that you PM me a video of this behavior happening so that I can track down a fix for it more easily.

Thanks again for your feedback. Once again, we are still actively developing this beta, and we prioritize fixing issues with the beta mentioned by users, so we hope you check back with this beta soon to see the progress that we’ve been making.

[rogeriodec_games]

@IcyTides

As for not saving breakpoints and losing currently opening script tabs when enabling and disabling the beta, this is something I cannot reproduce on my instance of Studio

[CentreWorks]

This is a great change, Roblox please keep this up! I understand everyone in the community won’t be pleased with every update, but changes like this help us loads!