Generic way how to disable error checking in NB

[Marek Fukala]

Hi all,

In the web editing we have a problem that some HTML files are just
fragments of a bigger unit. These fragments are in most cases joined by
a templating language - JSP, RHTML or PHP.

These files are parsed and error annotations are created as any other
html file. This may lead to false errors since the page may contain just
  a part of the html code.

It is not easily possible to determine which pages are just fragments
and which are not automatically. So it seems that it would be desirable
if there was a way how user can disable these checks for particular files.

I was thinking for example about:
1) an action "Enable Error Checking" with a checkbox in the editor popup
menu
2) or in the annotation popup menu
3) or on the file status icon

So my question is if there is a standart way how to handle this and if
not what would be the right UI for doing so.

http://www.netbeans.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=120828

Thanks,
Marek

[Jan Rojcek]

I agree that showing errors in the source code if there's no real  
error is misleading. If the IDE cannot deal with showing proper  
errors for templating languages, the user may want to turn the error  
checking off completely. I would suggest a different approach. If the  
IDE knows it cannot identify real problems, it should still notify  
the user, but instead of saying "This is an error" say "It looks like  
this can be a problem.". In other words display it as a warning  
annotation, not an error.

I think a warning annotation would be really appropriate as it  
notifies the user to pay special attention to the templating section  
of the source code.

I can imagine we give the user an option to suppress specific  
_warnings_ (not errors), but I'm not sure it's really needed in this  
case.

-Jano

On 18 Jan 2008, at 10:20, Marek Fukala wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> In the web editing we have a problem that some HTML files are just  
> fragments of a bigger unit. These fragments are in most cases  
> joined by a templating language - JSP, RHTML or PHP.
>
> These files are parsed and error annotations are created as any  
> other html file. This may lead to false errors since the page may  
> contain just  a part of the html code.
>
> It is not easily possible to determine which pages are just  
> fragments and which are not automatically. So it seems that it  
> would be desirable if there was a way how user can disable these  
> checks for particular files.
>
> I was thinking for example about:
> 1) an action "Enable Error Checking" with a checkbox in the editor  
> popup menu
> 2) or in the annotation popup menu
> 3) or on the file status icon
>
> So my question is if there is a standart way how to handle this and  
> if not what would be the right UI for doing so.
>
> http://www.netbeans.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=120828
>
> Thanks,
> Marek

[Marek Fukala]

That is problematic IMHO - under most of the cases the source is
complete and all found errors are real errors. Making warning from them
just because we are not 100% sure if they really are is IMHO not a good
idea. Having a significant part of the file underlined is probably
something people will not like.

In most of the pages the errors are relevant, and since the pages which
are just fragments are not possible to identify AFAIK so the ide itself
cannot determine whether show errors or just warnings, some user input
is needed.

Possibility to disable particullar errors is nice, but does not really
help in this case.

Do you think the possibility to enable/disable the checks per file is a
wrong idea from the user perspective?

-marek


Jan Rojcek wrote:

> I agree that showing errors in the source code if there's no real error
> is misleading. If the IDE cannot deal with showing proper errors for
> templating languages, the user may want to turn the error checking off
> completely. I would suggest a different approach. If the IDE knows it
> cannot identify real problems, it should still notify the user, but
> instead of saying "This is an error" say "It looks like this can be a
> problem.". In other words display it as a warning annotation, not an error.
>
> I think a warning annotation would be really appropriate as it notifies
> the user to pay special attention to the templating section of the
> source code.
>
> I can imagine we give the user an option to suppress specific _warnings_
> (not errors), but I'm not sure it's really needed in this case.
>
> -Jano
>
> On 18 Jan 2008, at 10:20, Marek Fukala wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> In the web editing we have a problem that some HTML files are just
>> fragments of a bigger unit. These fragments are in most cases joined
>> by a templating language - JSP, RHTML or PHP.
>>
>> These files are parsed and error annotations are created as any other
>> html file. This may lead to false errors since the page may contain
>> just  a part of the html code.
>>
>> It is not easily possible to determine which pages are just fragments
>> and which are not automatically. So it seems that it would be
>> desirable if there was a way how user can disable these checks for
>> particular files.
>>
>> I was thinking for example about:
>> 1) an action "Enable Error Checking" with a checkbox in the editor
>> popup menu
>> 2) or in the annotation popup menu
>> 3) or on the file status icon
>>
>> So my question is if there is a standart way how to handle this and if
>> not what would be the right UI for doing so.
>>
>> http://www.netbeans.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=120828
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Marek
>

[Jan Rojcek]

On 18 Jan 2008, at 12:54, Marek Fukala wrote:

> That is problematic IMHO - under most of the cases the source is  
> complete and all found errors are real errors. Making warning from  
> them just because we are not 100% sure if they really are is IMHO  
> not a good idea.

Yes, but this issue is about showing errors if there's no real  
errors, right? As in the example described in issuezilla. In plain  
html the IDE should show errors as they are real errors. In jsp or  
php the IDE should only show errors in those parts of the code where  
it's an error for sure.

> Having a significant part of the file underlined is probably  
> something people will not like.

It all depends on real cases. If a big portion of a file is wrongly  
underlined, then it can be an issue. How common is that? Can we  
improve the error checking so that we eliminate false alarms?

> In most of the pages the errors are relevant, and since the pages  
> which are just fragments are not possible to identify AFAIK so the  
> ide itself cannot determine whether show errors or just warnings,  
> some user input is needed.

I think we need to analyze what are the different cases when the IDE  
shows false errors and how common is that.

> Do you think the possibility to enable/disable the checks per file  
> is a wrong idea from the user perspective?

In general we should not ask the user to enable/disable features  
because they may not work reliably. That's a usability issue. It also  
brings complications as the IDE needs to indicate the disabled state  
visually and remember it between IDE sessions.

Thanks,
Jano