DeMark Beta-0.3

Introduction and User Manual

Team DeFacto-UW:

• Andrew Tran
• Tony Vo
• Tuan Ma
• Jeff Xu
• Lemei Zhang

Quick Links:

1 - Introduction | 2 - Installation | 3 - Using DeMark | 4 - Specific Behaviors | 5 - Reporting Bugs | 6 - Contributing

1 Introduction

One common way for a developers to debug throu:gh their code is by adding temporary, non-production lines of code, such as print statements, to understand the program’s state, but it can be a tedious task to manage them manually.

DeMark is a plugin for the IntelliJ IDEA that is used to keep track of temporary debug code. It allows this by letting the user putting a special bookmark on lines of code and highligting them, essentially "marking" them as debug code.

It aims to increase software developers’ programming productivity by facilitating the management of temporary code.

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2 Installation

This section provides the instruction for installing DeMark. It is a modified version of the official IntelliJ help documentation on the JetBrains website[1]:

1. Press [Ctrl + Alt + S] or choose File|Settings (for Windows and Linux) or IntelliJ IDEA |Preferences (for macOS) from the main menu, then go to Plugins.

2. Click the Install JetBrains plugin or the Browse repositories button.

3. In the dialog that opens, search for the plugin by typing “DeMark” into the search bar. Right-click the plugin labeled “DeMark” and select Download and Install.

   • If you are unable to find the latest version of DeMark through the built-in plugin installer, download the latest version of DeMark here.
   • Then from the Plugins window in Settings, click Install plugin from disk.

4. Confirm your intention to download and install DeMark.

5. Close the plugin window and click OK in the Settings dialog.

6. Restart IntelliJ IDEA.

DeMark will appear as a drop down menu on the top tool bar before the Help menu. There will also be a toggle button at the beginning of the quick tools area.

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3 Using DeMark

For each behavior, the keyboard shortcuts listed are their default shortcuts, the user can change the key bindings to any functions of DeMark if they choose to. To configure keyboard shortcuts for IntelliJ, please follow the instructions on this page: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/ configuring-keyboard-and-mouse-shortcuts.html.

3.1 Mark and Unmark

Marking a line will highlight the line and put a check mark next to its line number. There are two ways to mark a line:

• Place the cursor on the line you want to mark and chooe DeMark|Mark from the main menu.
• Place the cursor on the line you want to mark and press [Alt + M].

Unmarking a line will remove the highlight on the line and the check mark next to its line number. There are two ways to unmark a line:

• Place the cursor on the line you want to mark and chooe DeMark|Mark from the main menu.
• Place the cursor on the marked line you want to unmark and press [Alt + M].

For specific behaviors of marking and unmarking, please refer to section 4.

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3.2 Clear and Unclear

Clear will remove all currently marked lines from the current file. There are two ways to clear all marked lines:

• Choose DeMark|Clear All Marked Lines from the main menu.
• Press [Alt + D].

Unclear will restore all previously cleared lines for a file. There are two ways to unclear all previously cleared lines:

• Choose DeMark|Unclea All Marked Linesr from the main menu.
• Press [Alt + Shift + D].

For specific behaviors of marking and unmarking, please refer to section 4.

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3.3 Toggle

The Toggle feature allows the user to comment/uncomment all the marked lines at a time.

• Click the button located in the quick tools bar.

For specific behaviors of marking and unmarking, please refer to section 4.

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3.4 Display

Display allows the user to view all marked lines in a file from a more project overview level by only displaying the marked lines along with a range of lines above and below to provide context:

• Choose DeMark|Display from the main menu.

For specific behaviors of marking and unmarking, please refer to section 4.

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4 Specific Behaviors of Functionality

4.1 Marking and unmarking:

• Marked lines will have a description that says “DeMark”.
• Marking and unmarking can only be done in IntelliJ and the marked lines will not show up as marked in other text editors or IDEs.
• Lines that are marked using DeMark will still be marked and visible in IntelliJ builds that do not have DeMark installed.
• Lines that are marked using DeMark will still be visible and editable in other text editors or IDEs. This includes insertion and deletion.
• Lines written in other files and marked using other IDEs will not show up as marked in IntelliJ but the line will still be there.
• Lines deleted in other IDEs or text editor will have the correct behavior as deleted in IntelliJ as well. This will also remove the mark for said line.

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4.2 Clearing and unclearing:

• Clearing will remove all marked lines with descriptions containing “DeMark” from the current file, regardless of whether the file is commented or not.
• Clearing will not clear lines that do not have “DeMark” as a description. This means that bookmarks made for other purposes will not be removed.
• Clearing when there are no marked lines will produce no effect.
• Unclearing will restore all lines that were removed by the most recent clear function to the current file.
• Unclearing will not restore lines that were not removed by the clear function. This includes lines that were manually deleted by the user in IntelliJ, another text editor, or IDE; and lines that were deleted by other plugins or extensions.
• Unclearing multiple clears in a row will restore the most recent clear, the second most recent clear, and so on.
• Lines that are added and marked after a clear action can still be cleared. This and the previous unclear behavior allows for the following pattern of use and any similar: “mark- clear-mark-clear-unclear-unclear.”
• Lines that are added and marked after clear will not be removed by unclear. This allows for the following pattern of use and any similar: “mark-clear-mark-unclear.”

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4.3 Toggle

Because toggling will put the plugin into two separate states, each state will have their own specific behaviors with some overlapping features.

4.3.1 Both states of toggle:

• Lines would still be able to be individually uncommented.
• Lines would still be able to be manually deleted.
• Lines deleted in other text editors or IDEs will still be represented correctly as deleted.

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4.3.2 “Off ” state:

• Marked lines that were already commented will gain an extra level of comment. This is similar to saying that the line will be commented twice.
• Marked lines that were commented will still be editable.
• Clearing and unclearing during this state is not permitted.
• Marking and unmarking in this state is permitted, the lines with their marking changed will retain their current levels of comment.

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4.3.3 “On” state:

• Marked lines having more than one level of comment will lose one level.
• Marked lines that were uncommented during “off” state will stay uncommented.
• Clearing and unclearing in this state is permitted.
• Marking and unmarking in this state is permitted, the lines with their marking changed will retain their current levels of comment.

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4.4 Display:

• Only marked lines for the current file will be displayed.
• Display will provide 3 extra lines of code above and below each marked line for context purposes.
• Displayed lines will be read-only. This includes the inability to mark, unmark, insert, or delete.

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5 Reporting Bugs

If you find any bugs in our plugin, please submit an issue to our GitHub page:https://github.com/DeFacto-UW/DeMark/issues with the following information:

• IntelliJ Version located by going to Help|About.
• A brief description of the bug.
• Specific steps to recreate the bug.
• (Optional) A screen shot of the bug.

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6 Contributing

If you want to contribute to DeMark, please refer to the contributing instructions.

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References

[1] Installing, updating and uninstalling repository plugins. Available at https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/installing-updating-and-uninstalling-repository-plugins.html.

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