Two things the lock got wrong, and they are the same mistake seen twice: trigger-off was treated as "the
pane is disabled".
**The configuration was unreachable exactly when it was wanted.** `on_trigger_toggled()` set the trigger
*body* insensitive with the mode — a rule carried over from the five-revealer sidebar, where a closed pane
had nothing to edit. A trigger is configured *before* it is switched on, so switching it off to change it,
or to read what it is set to, is the ordinary way to work. The body is now never disabled; only the
*cursors'* readout still is, which is the pane whose content has nothing to show with the instruments off.
**The locked pane described a trigger that was not running.** With trigger mode off the summary is one
line — `mode: stream (trigger off)` — because the four lines it used to show (signal, condition, level,
mode) describe a trigger that is not there. With the trigger on it is those four plus whatever is not at
its default (`noise band`, `HF reject`, `pre-trigger`, `hold-off`).
The reading changes with it: `trigger panel sensitive …=1` is now a **regression guard** rather than a
state — the trigger's body is always live, so a `0` there means the settings have been locked out again.
Verified in both states, from sessions whose only difference is `trigger_enabled`:
panes: trigger=locked signals=locked body_visible=0 summary='mode: stream (trigger off)'
panes: trigger=locked signals=locked body_visible=0 summary='signal: square | condition: window, rising | level: 0.3 .. 0.6 | mode: single | pre-trigger: 20 %'
trigger panel sensitive before the probe toggled it: 1
The locked trigger pane is 72 px with the trigger off and 192 px with it on. Docs: the invariants' rule
for which body is disabled and why the trigger's is not, the `summary`'s two forms with what each means,
the README's deviation note, and the second `panes:` line renamed to say what it is — the line as the
probe found it, because only a run whose *session* has the trigger off shows the stream form.
Two things the lock shipped wrong.
**The "done" icon did not exist.** `emblem-ok-symbolic` is a breeze icon; Adwaita — which is what this
app runs under — does not have it, so the button that leaves configuration mode drew a missing-image
placeholder, i.e. nothing. Both names are now Adwaita's own: `document-edit-symbolic` (the pencil: edit)
and `object-select-symbolic` (the check: done). This is exactly the silent failure `toolbar icons:`
exists for, so the two `[edit]` buttons get the same treatment: `pane edits: locked=…(ok) config=…(ok)`
is read by clicking into configuration mode and back, so one line carries both names and
`gtk_icon_theme_has_icon()`'s verdict for each. The invariants now carry the rule, including the trap
that a name found under `breeze` is not an answer.
**The locked pane was too compact.** One line could not hold what a user opens the pane for, so it is now
a small definition list: `signal`, `condition`, `level`, `mode` on four lines, and after that only the
figures that are *not* at their defaults — `noise band`, `HF reject`, `pre-trigger`, `hold-off` — because
a line reading "band 0" is a line that says nothing. The channel is resolved from the acquired channels
and the condition quotes the figures its own shape reads (a width and its comparison, two levels, or a
timeout), never one it ignores. The pane is ~192 px tall locked against 580 in configuration mode.
One self-inflicted critical on the way: the probe read the summary with `gtk_label_get_text()`, and the
container is a grid now — `Gtk-CRITICAL: assertion 'GTK_IS_LABEL (self)' failed`. The text comes from the
sync that writes it instead.
Verified: `pane edits: locked=document-edit-symbolic(ok) config=object-select-symbolic(ok)`;
`panes: trigger=locked signals=locked body_visible=0 summary='signal: square | condition: window, falling
| level: 0.3 .. 0.6 | mode: single | noise band: 0.2 | pre-trigger: 20 % | hold-off: 1000 ms'`;
`make test-ui` 14 files; zero `Gtk-CRITICAL` and no missing icon.
The trigger pane and the cursors pane now have a `GtkSwitch` in their heading, and it is *one control in
two places* with the header bar's button: both run the same action (`run_app_action()`), and
`sync_panel_switches()` re-reads each pair from the toolbar's state after any change, so clicking either
end moves both. A pane whose feature is off is disabled, which is exactly the state you need the switch
in, so it belongs *in* the pane rather than only in the toolbar.
Three things it needed:
- **The sensitive target moved to the pane's body.** A control inside an insensitive parent cannot be
clicked, so a switch that greyed out with its own pane could never turn it back on. `on_trigger_toggled`
and `on_cursors_toggled` now disable `trigger_body` / `cursors_body`, and so does the startup default;
the headings, with their switches, stay live.
- **The trigger's heading moved out of `trigger-panel.ui`** and is built in `build_trigger_panel()`,
which returns the heading row and the panel together. It has to be a sibling of the body for the switch
to stay usable, and keeping it in the file would have meant the file owning a widget the code must
arrange. The file's own panel is unchanged otherwise, so the `[trigger panel:]` counts still read.
- **A guard on the sync.** Setting a `GtkSwitch` emits `notify::active` for a programmatic write just as
it does for a click, so without `App::panel_switch_sync` the program's own write would come back as a
click and flip the feature again.
Readings, both directions in one line:
trigger panel sensitive before the probe toggled it: 0; … ; pane switches live while their panes are off=1
panel switches: trigger=1/1 cursors=1/1 drove_toolbar=1 (pane switch / header bar button)
`pane switches live …=1` is the design's point and is read before anything turns either pane on; `0` would
be a switch drawn, greyed and useless. The trigger pair is moved from the *toolbar* end and the cursors
pair from the *pane* end, so the line carries both halves of the sync, and `drove_toolbar=1` is the pane's
own switch having turned the cursors on with the button following. `trigger panel sensitive …=0` is the
body, not the panel.
Verified: the two lines above; `[side-tab-probe] … advanced=4`; `make test-ui` 14 files; zero
`Gtk-CRITICAL` and no missing icon. Docs: the new reading in `probe-readings.md` with what a `0` means,
the invariants bullet for the one-control-in-two-places rule and its two traps, the sidebar bullet's
sensitive target, and the README note on why the switch is in the pane.
The bold pass had turned the trigger into half a period — a signal rising above its level — and that
lost the thing the glyph is for: the crossings. A crest and a trough read as a wave; a hump reads as a
hill, and a trigger that shows no crossing names the "above the level" half of an event. The full-period
sine with the dashed level through it is restored, exactly as it was, and the Signals pill carries the
same wave again so the pill and the toolbar button stay one picture.
The Measure glyph keeps the bold redesign, which is the part that was better: two cursors (a cap over two
4px dashes) beside a ruler of two bands with three 2x4 marks and no end caps. The Signals pill also keeps
its two bold channel rows.
Verified: `toolbar icons: trigger=udpscope-trigger-symbolic(ok)`;
`page icons: measure=udpscope-tab-measure-symbolic(ok) signals=udpscope-tab-signals-symbolic(ok)`;
`switcher: policy=narrow pills=2 labels=0 names=2 icon=32x32 size=308x36`; `[side-tab-probe] … advanced=4`;
the Preferences dialog opened in the same run with no "not present"; `make test-ui` 14 files; zero
`Gtk-CRITICAL`. The icons' blob is 12352 bytes, still over the C99 limit, so the clean-build warning count
stays four.
The previous pair were detailed miniatures — 1px ticks, 2px dashes, a 13-column wave — and at 32x16 that
reads as *texture* rather than as a shape, which is what "not clear" looks like. All three glyphs are
redrawn bold: one thick band, two thick dashes, few features.
- **Measure** is two cursors beside the ruler they read against. Each cursor is a cap over two bold
dashes (4px), where three 2px dashes read as a dotted column; the ruler is two bands with three 2x4
marks between them and **no end caps**, because a closed frame reads as a rectangle and costs a fifth
of the ink on two lines that say nothing. This is the layout whose first attempt looked like two icons
in a box — the difference is entirely the weight and the open ends.
- **Signals** is a signal rising above its level beside two bold channel rows. Half a period instead of
a full one: at this size a full period is a zigzag and a hump is unmistakably a wave, and the level's
marks survive on both sides of it instead of being swallowed by the crest.
- **The trigger's own icon** is now the same picture as the Signals pill, so the pill and the button that
turns the trigger on are recognisably about the same thing.
Each was rendered and read back as an ink map at 1:1 and at 2x before it was installed, and three
candidates were compared for the Measure glyph (markers *on* a scale, cursors *over* a ruler, and this):
the first two turned the marks and the shafts into blobs at the crossings. Ink is 18%, 30% and 29%,
inside the range the icons above them set, and everything stays inset two pixels.
Verified: `toolbar icons: trigger=udpscope-trigger-symbolic(ok)`;
`page icons: measure=udpscope-tab-measure-symbolic(ok) signals=udpscope-tab-signals-symbolic(ok)`;
`switcher: policy=narrow pills=2 labels=0 names=2 icon=32x32 size=308x36`; `[side-tab-probe] … advanced=4`;
the Preferences dialog opened in the same run with no "not present"; `make test-ui` 14 files; zero
`Gtk-CRITICAL`. The icons' blob is 11774 bytes, still over the C99 limit, so the clean-build warning
count stays four.
The previous Measure glyph was two icons sharing a box: a heavy closed ruler frame on the right and
two light caps on the left, with nothing relating them. It is now one instrument — two cursors
*standing on* the scale they read against, each marker centred on one of the scale's marks, so the
pair reads the way the pane works: bracket a window, read it against the axis.
Three things the render said, each fixed:
- **The closed frame was most of the ink.** Two lines and two end caps cost about a fifth of the
glyph's ink and say nothing a ruler's marks do not, so the scale is now one band with alternating
marks — long, short, long — hanging above it.
- **The caps were dashes, not grips.** 5x2 at 32px read as a horizontal stroke; they are 5x3, like the
caps on the toolbar's cursors icon.
- **The ticks were finer than everything else.** At 1px they were thinner than the 2px weight every
icon here uses, so they are 2px, and every mark alternates in height the way a ruler's do.
The Markers' shafts are dashed and meet the band rather than hovering over it, and the whole glyph is
inset two pixels like the others, so nothing is flush with an edge that a button's padding or a crop
takes a pixel off. Ink: 27%, inside the range the icons above it set.
Verified: `page icons: measure=udpscope-tab-measure-symbolic(ok) signals=udpscope-tab-signals-symbolic(ok)`;
`switcher: policy=narrow pills=2 labels=0 names=2 icon=32x32 size=308x36`; `[side-tab-probe] … advanced=4`;
the Preferences dialog opened in the same run with no "not present" (the plain ruler it uses is untouched);
`make test-ui` 14 files; zero `Gtk-CRITICAL`. The icons' blob is 12624 bytes, still over the C99 limit, so
the clean-build warning count stays four.
The trigger's toolbar icon was a rising edge, which names only one of the four shape triggers the panel
offers. It is now a sine with a dashed level through it — the trigger's actual job, find the signal where
it crosses this — and the Signals tab's pill carries the *same* picture beside the channel list, so the
pill and the button that turns the trigger on read as the same idea. Both are one period of one-pixel
stairs, the way the plot rasterises its own traces.
Everything is inset two pixels now. The previous drafts ran their level and their bars flush to the cell
edge, which is what makes art look shaved wherever a button's padding or a crop takes a pixel: nothing in
either tab glyph, or in the trigger's, touches an edge.
Each shape was drawn and then read back as an ink map rather than trusted — the first sine came out as a
thin antialiased diagonal (a polygon through whole-pixel vertices has diagonal *edges*), which is why the
band is now per-column stairs; the level-through-the-centre arrangement was chosen over level-above-the-
centre after rendering both, since at these sizes a level nearer the crest merges with it into a blob. The
four glyphs measure 18%, 22%, 25% and 25% ink, inside the range the icons above them set.
Verified: `toolbar icons: trigger=udpscope-trigger-symbolic(ok)` and
`page icons: measure=udpscope-tab-measure-symbolic(ok) signals=udpscope-tab-signals-symbolic(ok)`;
`switcher: policy=narrow pills=2 labels=0 names=2 icon=32x32 size=308x36`;
`[side-tab-probe] … advanced=4`; `make test-ui` 14 files; zero `Gtk-CRITICAL` and no missing icon. The
icons' GResource blob is 12408 bytes — the SVG sources are embedded, comments included — still over the
C99 limit, so the clean-build warning count stays four.
Each tab's icon is now two motifs side by side instead of one in a 16px square: the Measure pill is the
two cursors beside the ruler, the Signals pill the trigger beside three channel rows. A 16px cell carries
one motif — squeezing a pair into it is what turned both into a smear — and the pill has the width for a
pair in a 300px column with two pills in it.
Two measurements decided the size, both of which I had wrong from the outside:
- **GDK paints an icon into a square box whatever the document's aspect.** `gtk_icon_theme_lookup_icon()`
at 32 reports a `32x32` paintable for a 32x16 document, and librsvg fits it: rendered with aspect kept,
the artwork comes out `32x16` inside a 32 request. So the pair is letterboxed, not stretched, and
`pixel_size` 32 draws it at exactly the size it is written — 1:1, so the 2px bars stay crisp. A
fractional scale (24 or 48) is what would blur them, which is why nothing here is drawn at one.
- **The bar does not get taller for it.** `switcher: … icon=32x32 size=308x36`: 36px is what the switcher
measured with 16px icons too, because the pill's fixed height takes a 32px box without growing.
Both glyphs were drawn and then read back as ink maps rather than trusted: the first drafts came out at
39% and 44% ink (a blot beside the house 25–36%), and the tab bar is the last place a shape can be
checked, since no screenshot works under this X setup. The finished two measure 23% and 33%.
Verified: `switcher: policy=narrow pills=2 labels=0 names=2 icon=32x32 size=308x36`;
`page icons: measure=udpscope-tab-measure-symbolic(ok) signals=udpscope-tab-signals-symbolic(ok)`;
`[side-tab-probe] … advanced=4`; the Preferences dialog opened in the same run with no "not present";
`make test-ui` 14 files; zero `Gtk-CRITICAL`. The icons' GResource blob is 11661 bytes, still over the
C99 limit, so the clean-build warning count stays four.
The Measure tab is now `udpscope-tab-measure-symbolic` — the two cursors standing across a ruler — and
the Signals tab is `udpscope-tab-signals-symbolic` — the trigger's rising edge over the channel list it
acts on. Each is a 16px composite rather than one of the icons the toolbar carries: a glyph the toolbar
already uses for one thing means two things the moment a tab shows it too, which is why the ruler alone
and the trigger alone were both wrong here.
The plain ruler stays exactly where it was. `udpscope-measure-symbolic` is the Preferences window's Plot
page icon and is untouched; the tab's pair is a new file beside it, so nothing that already meant "the
measurement ruler" changed meaning. Seven action icons bundled, nine with the two app icons.
Both composites are at the limit of what 16px holds — four features each — so each was drawn and then
*measured*: rasterized and read back as an ink map, since the shapes have to be checked as pixels and the
house range is 25-36% ink (trigger 25, cursors 27, ruler 36). The Signals list is two rows and not three,
so the edge and the list get half the cell each; its bars are all one length, because unequal ones read as
a bar chart and a chart is not a list. The Measure ruler's ends are open on purpose: a closed frame puts
four more pixels of ink at the left and right edges, which is what turns a ruler into a rectangle at this
size. First drafts came out at 39% and 44% ink and were rebalanced to 32% and 36%.
Verified: `page icons: measure=udpscope-tab-measure-symbolic(ok) signals=udpscope-tab-signals-symbolic(ok)`;
`switcher: policy=narrow pills=2 labels=0 names=2`; `[side-tab-probe] … advanced=4` (switching by page
name still works); the Preferences dialog opened in the same run with no "not present"; `make test-ui` 14
files; zero `Gtk-CRITICAL`. The icons' GResource blob is now 11309 bytes, still over C99's 4095-byte
string-literal limit, so the clean-build warning count is still four.
Each sidebar page gets its own glyph and no visible text. The Measure tab reuses the ruler
(`udpscope-measure-symbolic`, the icon its deleted toolbar toggle used and the Plot preferences page
still carries); the Signals tab gets a new `udpscope-signals-symbolic` — three rows of a colour chip
and a name, which is what that tab mostly is — rather than a second copy of the trigger glyph, since
one shape meaning two things in one window is worse than a new one. Its bars are all one length: a
set of unequal ones reads as a bar chart, and a chart is not a list.
`AdwViewSwitcherPolicy.narrow` alone does **not** give an icon-only bar. Measured on libadwaita 1.10
by walking the switcher's tree: with `narrow` and a title, each pill holds a `GtkImage` *and* a
`GtkLabel` — 48px of "Measure" inside a 54px pill. So the pages' `title` is **empty** (their `name` is
what identifies them to `select_side_tab()` and to the session file, and both are unchanged) and the
words are re-attached in code: `name_side_tabs()` runs on the first tick — the pills are
`AdwViewSwitcher`'s own and exist only once it is mapped — and gives each pill a **tooltip and an
accessible name** from the page's name, then hides the empty label that would otherwise leave the
icon off-centre. An icon-only pill is still a named control for a screen reader, and the page icon
that does not resolve leaves a *blank* pill, which is why it is read like the toolbar's icons are.
Two readings, because the claim is two claims:
switcher: policy=narrow pills=2 labels=0 names=2
page icons: measure=udpscope-measure-symbolic(ok) signals=udpscope-signals-symbolic(ok)
`labels` counts *mapped labels with text* — a plain mapped count reads 2 either way, because the
narrow pill keeps an empty label in its layout — and `pills=2` is the guard that makes it mean
something: with nothing mapped the rest of the line is void rather than a pass.
Docs: the icon census (six action icons, eight bundled, and what each of the two new users is), the
switcher bullet in `invariants-gtk-and-chrome.md` with the measurement above, the two new dump lines
in `probe-readings.md`, the re-measured GResource figures in `verification.md` (icons 8613 -> 9842
bytes, help 514660 after this session's help rewrite; the count stays four), and the README recording
that the design spec had the switcher showing titles and neither page an icon.
Verified: `make test-ui` 14 files; `[side-tab-probe] … advanced=4` (tab switching by name still
works with empty titles); `signals panel: … divider=1`; `[math-probe] 3 math channels`; zero
`Gtk-CRITICAL` and no missing icon.
`UDPSCOPE_PROBE_SIDE_TAB_MS` is the one reading for the design's §5 rule -- the statistics
accumulator keeps running on the hidden page -- which nothing tested before. It switches to
Measure, forces one pass so there is a baseline, switches away to Signals and reads again two
seconds later: `advanced=4` is the assertion, and `advanced=0` is the defect where the
accumulation is gated on the visible tab, which would leave a gap in min/max/avg for exactly as
long as the trigger was on screen.
Two things the probe has to do for itself, and getting either wrong makes `advanced=0` a lie
about the tab:
- it **enables its own signal**, because a signal starts disabled (enabling is what starts
acquisition) and a probe that waited for one to be on would be reading another probe's side
effects -- and `UDPSCOPE_ENABLE_ALL_MS` is not part of this run;
- it **assigns that channel to a plot**, because a channel with no trace leaves the live window
*still*, and a still window is precisely the state `update_measures()` is supposed to skip.
Measured the hard way: without the assignment the probe read `advanced=0 min_n=0` with the view
pinned and only four passes in twelve seconds, none of them the tab's doing.
Docs: `probe-readings.md` gains the probe's entry and the signals panel's new shape
(`rows == signals + 1 + math`, `divider=0` a list that lost its `+`), loses the whole `math
panel:` entry, and follows `pane_sensitive=`, the gone `revealed=` field, the six toolbar
controls and the tab-reading `m`/`g` key pairs. `verification.md` gains the probe's bullet and
the re-measured warning figures. The invariants record the sidebar as a switcher above a stack
with a scroller per page, the hidden-page trap that replaces the unrevealed-revealer one for it,
that a feature's on/off is sensitivity rather than visibility, that a math channel is a row of
the signal list, and that a cursors-off readout blanks to `--` with the panel left on screen.
`shortcuts.ui` and the help page's window and sidebar bullets stop describing five revealers.
The README records the deviation from `SPECS.md` that names the panes as separate collapsible
sections.
Verified: `[side-tab-probe] page=signals rows=4 accums=4 advanced=4 min_n=16`;
`signals panel: labels=2 list=1 rows=9 signals=4 math=4 divider=1`; `panels: … (page_current=1)
(sensitive=0) switcher=1`; `toolbar icons:` six controls with every name `(ok)`, with the
Preferences dialog opened in the same run; zero `Gtk-CRITICAL` and no missing icon.
README gains the three controls where each lives -- the trigger's `band`/`reject`, the
measurement's `noise`/`hf`, and the math channel's `de-noise` node -- each with its unit, what
"off" is, and what it costs, plus the two deliberate deviations from the design spec next to the
features they belong to: the band applies to `edge` and `window` only (a pulse's width is measured
from a crossing to its return, so a band there changes the measured width rather than rejecting
noise; a dropout is an absence with no level to compare), and the band is verified through
`BufferSearch` hit counts rather than `[condition-probe]` latch times, because probe-readings.md
states that a `t0` is not an assertion.
The invariant docs gain the rules a later change must not break: `EventCondition`'s two new fields
and the once-per-packet `configure(dt)` that must not reset; the crossing rule that a change is
between two *decided* sides; the measurement path's exception to "a readout quotes a stored
sample", why the band moves the edge decision only, why `measure_accumulate` loops samples outer,
and why a filtered window disables both bucket fast paths; that `MathOp` is append-only (the index
*is* the serialisation), that the median window is pooled in the runtime rather than held per node,
why the pole reuses `b0`/`z1`, and that median-then-pole is the design; the session's named
`noise`/`hf` keys and its thirteen-field node string that still reads twelve; and the two GTK
traps -- positionally brace-initialised dialogs, and a control that cannot apply being hidden
rather than disabled.
The refusal was never silent -- `on_drop_channel()` has always set a notice -- but the
status bar renders `notice + " | " + glance` in one label, so "plot 1 already holds
four signals" arrived looking like part of the routine text a reader skims, which is the
"no clear user feedback" report. The probe's own reading showed it plainly: the label held
`plotting 'sine' on plot 1 | live · 4.44 kS/s · 2 s window`.
Three changes:
- While a notice is fresh the status label carries the stock `.warning` class, so a message
looks like a message and the class goes when the notice does. Every notice benefits, not
just this one.
- The refusal says what to *do*: "plot 1 holds four signals already: drop it on another
plot, or add a row with the layout editor (L)".
- The drop's inline notice now goes through `set_notice()`, the one setter, instead of
writing `app.notice` and its deadline by hand.
[drop-probe] reads the whole path, with the row filled first so the drop under test is the
refusal:
full row refused the drop: 0 (want 0)
refused feedback: notice='plot 1 holds four signals already: ...' warning=1
the status line, composed: warning=1 status='plot 1 holds four signals already: ... | live · 9.97 kS/s · 2 s window'
The label is read in the third line and not the second on purpose: the status line composes
the notice into itself on its own cadence, so a beat after the refusal it may still hold the
previous text -- which the first attempt at this reading mistook for the fix not working.
The row limit is not silent in the same way: the layout editor's `+` is insensitive at
`kMaxRows`, which is a control that says "no" by being unusable rather than a message.
The window control is a GtkMenuButton whose popover autohides -- which works for as long as
GTK holds the popover's grab, and the grab is what can go missing: a window manager moving
it, the nested popover the unit dropdown opens taking it, and every headless run, where
there is no manager to hand one out at all. After that a click anywhere else in the window
leaves the bubble up, which is the "sometimes it is awkward to close" report.
`on_window_popover_press()` states the rule outright instead of relying on the grab: any
press that reaches the window's own surface closes it. That needs no hit test beyond the
button -- a popover is its own surface, so a click *inside* it never arrives here -- and the
button is left alone, because its own click is the toggle that closes it. The press gesture
is on the window in the capture phase, so a widget under the press (the plot's own gestures
among them) cannot hide it.
[windowpop] reads both halves, with autohide turned off for the probe -- the state a user
meets when the grab goes missing:
[windowpop] opened=1 visible=1 click_gestures=2
[windowpop] after a press elsewhere: active=0 (want 0)
[windowpop] after a press on the button: active=1 (want 1)
`click_gestures` is read as well as the handler, so "the rule works" and "the rule is
connected" are two facts rather than one.
Moving the editor's frame into math-editor.ui left `math_body` and `math_actions` as
<child> elements of the *window* rather than of `math_outer`, because those edits were
anchored on the file's tail and closed the outer box two elements early. A GtkWindow
takes exactly one default <child>, so nothing failed loudly: the body -- with the canvas
and the parameter form inside it -- was left parentless, visible but never mapped, 0x0,
drawing nothing. Two symptoms, one cause: the canvas is blank, and the window is sized
around the head row and the buttons alone.
Measured against the pre-move revision in a worktree, same probe, same environment:
before this fix `canvas=0x0 mapped=0 window=756x940`; after it `canvas=420x836 mapped=1
window=938x940`, which is the old revision's own reading exactly.
It survived because that slice's probe read the editor's *values* (nodes, gain, output,
name, unit) and nothing about its structure. Every other panel moved that day has a
structural reading -- `controls_inside=13/13`, `nested=1`, `labels=2 list=1` -- and none
of them was affected. `[math-probe] editor frame:` is that reading now: the canvas's
allocation, its mapped state, and whether the canvas and the name entry are inside the
dialog at all, delayed 500 ms because an allocation only exists after a layout. In the
broken build it read `0x0 mapped=0 in_dialog=0`.
check_ui passes both files: the XML was valid and every property type-checked.
todo.md's item 10 is closed with what moved, what stayed in code and why, the reading each
slice added, and the three GTK facts in invariants-gtk-and-chrome.md. The plan's table is
marked complete, with the note that the header bar went last and in one change -- pack_start
appends after whatever a file packed, so staging it by group would have reordered the bar in
an intermediate commit.
Two facts added to the invariants: a code-added header-bar child lands after the file's, so
going first means the file declares a slot (which is what header-bar.ui does for the
time-window control); and <child type="end"> is added leftwards-from-the-right, so a header
bar's end group reads the reverse of the file.
The row asked for these buttons in a .ui file and that is not possible: there is one per
row and one more than that per boundary, and a GtkBuilder instantiates a file's objects
once, so the file can hold neither the count nor a prototype for the code to copy. The
plan's note ("only the buttons are template") is wrong for the same reason, and the plan
document now says so.
What was real in the row was the duplication: the look was written out three times -- the
icon, the two CSS classes that make a small round on-screen-display control, the size,
the overlay append and the bookkeeping -- and is now one function,
`layout_overlay_button()`. Each loop keeps only what makes it different: its alignment,
its sensitivity, the data it carries and, for the resize handle, its drag gesture.
The layout probe is the check and its readings are byte-identical before and after, all
seven lines: `buttons=5 done=1 done_box=[680,4,72x42] close=[4] add=[0,832] resize=[(1:-)]`
and the row geometry through add-above, remove, add-at-end and Editor off.
src/ui/signals-panel.ui holds the panel's shape: the box and its margins, the heading,
the hint that says what a signal is for, and the list. The rows stay in code -- one per
signal, carrying that signal's switch, colour, calibration and drop targets, rebuilt
whenever the stream's signals change -- so the file holds the frame, which is the shape
the plan gives this slice.
The list's width-only size request moved with it, comment and all: a height floor there
made the list occupy 120 px whatever it held, which hid the compact rows' height behind
it.
Read back by a new dump line, `signals panel: labels=2 list=1`, where a lost id reads as
`labels=1` or `list=0` instead of a panel quietly missing its hint; `panels: … row_h=26`
still reads the list's geometry and the height a row takes. check_ui is at 10 ok.
The panel's shape -- the heading, one labelled row per setting, the two buttons that
run it, and the search block -- now lives in src/ui/trigger-panel.ui. Every control
that carries a value stays in code and is appended into the file's row: a dropdown's
model and a spin's range are the application's, a label is text a translator owns, so
that is where the line runs. `row_for()` is `labeled_box()`'s arrangement with the
labels moved into the file; the thirteen old calls to `labeled_box()` here are gone and
its eleven uses elsewhere are untouched.
`sync_trigger_rows()` now guards the rows it shows and hides, because a row that comes
from the file can be missing rather than merely misnamed.
The frame is read back by a new dump line:
trigger panel: boxes=13 controls_inside=13/13 search_widgets=4/4 search_inside=4/4
where `controls_inside` is what a drifted id breaks -- a control built and never placed
leaves the panel with a field missing and nothing else complaining -- and
`[defaults] trigger: 0.001 0.002 0 0.001 0 50 0.01` still reads the seven spins in the
same tree order, which is the check that the restructure kept the panel's contents.
Two days of grief came out of one GTK fact, now in the invariants: an expander's child
is not in the widget-parent chain (`gtk_widget_get_parent()` is NULL for it even after
the window is presented, while `gtk_expander_get_child()` returns it), so the probe
walk had to start there instead of at the panel. The throwaway program that settled it
is what stopped the workaround -- a second root in the file plus a code attach -- from
being the answer.
Fifteen display strings in the two preference forms were written as GTK mnemonics -- `_Directory`,
`_Server`, `Multicast _group`, `_Theme` and the rest -- but the property that makes GTK read them was
never set, so GTK drew the underscore literally: `_Directory` in the row, not a D with a line under it.
Two switches are involved, FALSE by default in each case. `GtkLabel`/`GtkButton` take `use-underline`;
the rows take `AdwPreferencesRow:use-underline`, "whether an embedded underline in the title indicates a
mnemonic". The two buttons in the source form already set it (so their mnemonics worked and showed no
underscore); the thirteen rows did not. All thirteen now do.
The row classes that carry the property are not all related -- AdwEntryRow has its own, while AdwSpinRow,
AdwComboRow and AdwSwitchRow get it through AdwActionRow -- so the probe reads it by name on a GObject
(g_object_class_find_property, then g_object_get) rather than casting to one row type; a cast to a
`GtkWidget*` where the type is only forward-declared does not compile at all.
`_Cancel` and `_Connect` both claimed C in the same form, so Alt+C could only reach one of them: that
marker was unreachable, which is worse than absent because it is in the source to be trusted. `_Connect`
becomes `Conn_ect`, freeing C for Cancel.
[prefs-probe] reads the count (4/4) on the real widgets; check_ui validates the property against the GIR
for every object in every .ui file, inherited properties included.
The interface is hand-written GtkBuilder XML and nothing in the build can see a mistake in it: a
property a class does not have, or a child a container does not accept, is a Gtk-ERROR when the
window is built -- and Gtk-ERROR aborts the process, so a typo in a .ui takes the application down
rather than failing to open a dialog. xml-stripblanks catches malformed XML and nothing else, and
the probes catch the rest only for the windows they open. Three of those aborts happened during
this refactor.
tools/check_ui.py round-trips each file through blueprint-compiler: decompile to blueprint, then
compile that, which type-checks every property and child type against the GIR. The XML stays the
source of truth and stays hand-written -- this is a check, not a compiler, and nothing here is
needed to build the application. Which is why the target is opt-in (no ALL) and the tool is looked
for at configure time rather than required: without it the target is absent, not silently passing.
$ make -C build test-ui
check_ui: 5 files in src/ui
ok help.ui ... source-form.ui
check_ui: 5 ok, 0 failed
Injected the exact mistake that cost a run earlier (an AdwEntryRow subtitle) and the check caught
it, with the caret and the "did you mean title?" hint, exiting non-zero. --lint prints the linter's
advice separately: it is advice, and the linter has opinions this project does not share.
src/ui/main-window.ui holds the window, its two panes, the plot column with the status line under it,
and the sidebar's scroller. What stays in code is what depends on the stream: the events pane, the two
plot areas, the sidebar's panels and the status popover, each put into a slot by id.
The header bar is deliberately not in the file. It is the window's own titlebar, every button on it is
wired to an action, and an AdwApplicationWindow refuses a titlebar outright -- a fatal Adwaita-ERROR
rather than a warning that leaves the window merely ugly -- so the window is a GtkApplicationWindow and
the header bar stays where it was.
gtk_paned_set_position() is the other thing that had to stay in code, and the reason is order rather
than shape: it clamps against its children *now*, so stating it before the sidebar's panels exist moved
the plot column by ~180 px.
The layout, events and box-zoom probes read what they read before this change, and the header reads
window_button_w=130 bar_w=756 as it always has -- checked by building the previous commit and running
the same probe against it, because the layout numbers in the notes turned out to be stale from an
earlier session. Five UI files now.
src/ui/source-form.ui is the form a source is added or edited with: an AdwDialog of
AdwPreferencesGroup rows (AdwEntryRow, AdwSpinRow, AdwSwitchRow) with its action in the header bar,
where the label says which mode the form is in -- Connect for a new host, Save for an existing
configuration. The grid of labels and bare entries it replaces had its hints in placeholders, which
vanish as soon as there is a value; they are the groups' descriptions now.
src/ui/help.ui is the help window's chrome: an AdwWindow with a header bar and an
AdwNavigationSplitView whose sidebar is the page list. The rows stay in C++ because the fourteen
pages are data, not template.
Four UI files now, 653 lines of template that used to be widget construction. Two libadwaita traps
cost a run each and are in docs/claude/invariants-gtk-and-chrome.md: an AdwDialog has no content
property (its child is a plain <child>, unlike an AdwToolbarView), and AdwEntryRow has no subtitle
(it is an AdwPreferencesRow, not an AdwActionRow). The unused form_field() helper went with them.
Every probe reading is unchanged -- [sources] form:, [sources] edit form:, [help] -- which is what
refactoring a shape rather than a behaviour should look like.
src/ui/preferences.ui is an AdwPreferencesDialog whose rows are libadwaita's own -- AdwEntryRow,
AdwSpinRow, AdwSwitchRow, AdwComboRow, AdwButtonRow -- instead of a label and a bare GtkEntry in a
GtkBox. There is no Apply button: a row applies as it changes, which is what those widgets are
designed around, and [prefs-probe] reads the settings file back after every change.
The folder chooser is cancellable now, so a picker still open when the dialog closes cannot write
into a row that is gone; the cancellable is also how the probe takes the cancel path without a
mouse.
Two traps cost a run each and are recorded in docs/claude/invariants-gtk-and-chrome.md: an
AdwDialog is not a GtkWindow (it cannot parent a GtkFileDialog, and in floating mode it adds a
native surface to gtk_window_get_toplevels() that is neither a widget nor a window), and a .ui
that is not listed in the GResource is a Gtk-ERROR at runtime rather than a build failure -- which
is exactly what the probe opening every window is for.
GTK4 and libadwaita. It receives one UDP stream through the vendored
udpsclient, buffers it in a large ring, and draws it with the vendored
plotter: a trigger with a pre/post event window, a pause that freezes the
window, cursors, measurements, math channels in a node editor, an event cache,
named configurations, preferences, and an export of the visible window to
.npy/.csv. Waveform files can be opened and analysed in place.
The interface is two threads -- a producer that owns the socket and the GTK
main thread that owns every widget and the GL context -- sharing one model
under one mutex, with samples crossing through lock-free rings.
deps/plotter is a submodule pinned to the commit this tree builds against;
deps/udpsclient is vendored in place. docs/claude/ documents the rules that
cost a defect to learn, and SPECS.md is the requirement document.
The file was 1967 lines and is auto-loaded into every context, so every
session paid for the whole of it to reach one invariant. It now carries the
project's goal, the three facts that are always relevant, and a table of
contents; the body is fourteen files under docs/claude/ reached by link
rather than by import, so nothing is loaded until it is asked for.
The content is moved verbatim -- the only edits are each file's own header
and the cross-references that became cross-file ("see the invariant below"
is now a link to the file that owns it).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Martino Ferrari