Using Multiple Smell Scans leads to "Incomprehensible Rainbow" Documents 🌈

starlocke commented 4 years ago

(details to come later)

tsantalis commented 4 years ago

I am very curious for this one!

starlocke commented 4 years ago

Okay. So, originally, I thought it was a symptom of "multiple smell scanners from JDeodorant", but it's actually a UX oversight when JDeodorant is used in combination with Code Coverage testing/reporting.

Take that small project from yesterday.
Within Eclipse, having JDeodorant also installed, load the project.
Run "Bad Smells -> Long Method" for all of "src".
Explore the first smell in the "Long Method" tab/view.
Then do the "Run Coverage as JUnit" operation on "tests" (right-clicked on "tests" to start this).
Go back to the "Long Method" tab/view.
Try exploring the first smell. Try exploring the second smell.

Expected result:

The "Long Method" smells would visually stand out from the regular code.
That may mean suppressing all other highlights, like the ones that come from Code Coverage; which could mean wiping them out, or softening/muting their colours.
That may also mean using different colours.
That may also be supported by text or symbol annotations, like "virtual" comments on the right-side of every affected line.
There may be other UI/UX options available.

Actual result:

The "Long Method" smells are completely lost in the "Code Coverage" highlights, and indistinguishable, visually speaking.
Also, repeatedly "double-clicking" on a listed "long method" case might toggle on/off some highlighting for particular lines (probably somewhat randomly in a race-condition).

Screenshot 1 of 2 (many pointers in one):

000140

Screenshot 2 of 2 (pointing out that one line whose highlight colour randomly flips):

000141

tsantalis commented 4 years ago

Thanks @starlocke That's because both JDeodorant and Eclipse Code coverage tool are using the same marker annotation mechanism to highlight the code.

If you go to the Coverage window and click on Remove Active Session the test coverage highlights will disappear.

Screenshot from 2020-10-24 13-49-49

JDeodorant clears all its previously placed marker annotations, whenever you double-click on another refactoring opportunity.

tsantalis / JDeodorant

Using Multiple Smell Scans leads to "Incomprehensible Rainbow" Documents 🌈 #82