Debug "Prompter" handler dialogs may be hidden behind progress dialog

[iloveeclipse]

Our users are sometimes killing Eclipse because they claim it is waiting forever with "Progress Information" on starting program execution.

This is a usability issue caused by a bad timing of dialogs. Precondition: launch config must have "launch in background" checkbox disabled like here:

Steps leading to the problem

• Project has compilation errors.
• User ignores errors and starts debugging execution (because compile error is in unrelated hard to fix code).
• Launch validation checks take a bit longer, so progress dialog is shown asynchronously by system
• At same time, right before progress dialog is shown, launch validation shows "compilation error" dialog and waits for user to confirm if we should proceed with the launch.
• Progress dialog is a bit bigger then the error dialog and is shown over them, so the user can't see error dialog that waits for feedback.
• User only sees the progress dialog and waits for it to continue, the UI waits for user input...
• After some time user kills Eclipse

The ProgressMonitorJobsDialog that opens "Progress Information" dialog after 800 ms while waiting on org.eclipse.debug.core.model.LaunchConfigurationDelegate.finalLaunchCheck() opens right after the org.eclipse.debug.internal.ui.launchConfigurations.CompileErrorProjectPromptStatusHandler.handleStatus() opens the "Errors in Workspace" dialog.

I can almost always reproduce the bad timing with breakpoints.

• Conditional breakpoint in org.eclipse.debug.core.model.LaunchConfigurationDelegate.finalLaunchCheck(ILaunchConfiguration, String, IProgressMonitor) with Thread.sleep(850); "condition" right before errors.add(0, configuration); line.
• Line breakpoint at the line dialog.open(); in org.eclipse.ui.internal.progress.ProgressManager.scheduleProgressMonitorJob(ProgressMonitorJobsDialog)
• Line breakpoint at line int open = dialog.open(); in org.eclipse.debug.internal.ui.launchConfigurations.CompileErrorProjectPromptStatusHandler.handleStatus(IStatus, Object)

In that case if I return from debugger to Eclipse debuggee I see only the progress dialog, but not the error one (because it is hidden behind the progress).

Bad state:

Bad state "explained":

Expected (good) state:

I'm thinking about some "forced" shell activation / polling for active status somewhere around org.eclipse.debug.internal.ui.sourcelookup.Prompter.handleStatus(IStatus, Object) code, so that the "shell with the prompt" always forcibly activates itself if hidden by some other shell, but if anyone has a better proposal, you are welcome.

[jukzi]

May be it would be better to just not open the problematic Progress Dialog. Instead it could use the progress bar in the status bar like open-quick-type-hierarchy does.

[iloveeclipse]

May be it would be better to just not open the problematic Progress Dialog. Instead it could use the progress bar in the status bar like open-quick-type-hierarchy does.

I've tried on other occasion but it was quickly dismissed by users as they overlook the tiny progress line and with the possible wait times of some minutes (because of big projects) they want always see the clear progress on the screen.