Filters dialog blocks the logs

[klukshu]

I am not sure how much of this is under the purview of VScode vs the flutter DevTools specifically. I'm a software development beginner, but based on the fact that I can't find any information on a better way to do this stuff; at the very least my naivete can inform where documentation could be improved.

DevTools Settings

• "Enable analytics" isn't descriptive enough, and I cannot find anything that describes what and how analysis is happening.
• None of the settings menus in DevTools allow copy, this is an unnecessary barrier to googling. Not beginner friendly.

The log

Filtering the log and a bug

• Transcribing the "Kind" to the filter is tedious
• The bug -> copy paste of a "Kind" field does not work in VScode, but it does work when I open DevTools in the browser
  • i can highlight with a cursor in VS code but ^C does nothing
• When the filters dialog is open it blocks the log, so you can't compare spelling to what you are trying to filter out.

A potential fix

• If there was a right click menu to select whether you want to exclude, or show only that kind of log; it would make it far less tedious to filter out stuff. Ideally you would be able to specify either filter exact matches or logs from the same class.
• an alternative could be auto fill in the filter menu, or a list of all of the kinds in the log
• the logical extreme would be to take advantage of the fact that log entries are JSON, they naturally lend themselves to a document oriented database and being queried as such.
  • if this is already the case behind the scenes, the docs need to say what query language is in use.

DevTools version: 2.37.2 IDE: VSCode Connected Device: CPU / OS: x64 (64 bit) android Connected app type: Flutter native (debug build) Dart Version: 3.5.1 Flutter Version: 3.24.1 / stable Framework / Engine: 5874a72aa4 / c9b9d5780d

[elliette]

Linking to some duplicate issues for copy-paste here:

Copy-paste in DevTools: https://github.com/flutter/devtools/issues/6794 Copy-paste in DevTools in VS Code IFRAME: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/129178

I filed https://github.com/flutter/devtools/issues/8496 for the "Enable analytics" concern.

I'll leave this issue open to track addressing the logging concerns:

When the filters dialog is open it blocks the log, so you can't compare spelling to what you are trying to filter out. A potential fix

If there was a right click menu to select whether you want to exclude, or show only that kind of log; it would make it far less tedious to filter out stuff. Ideally you would be able to specify either filter exact matches or logs from the same class. an alternative could be auto fill in the filter menu, or a list of all of the kinds in the log the logical extreme would be to take advantage of the fact that log entries are JSON, they naturally lend themselves to a document oriented database and being queried as such. if this is already the case behind the scenes, the docs need to say what query language is in use.