udpscope/docs/claude/invariants-gtk-and-chrome.md

# Invariants: GTK traps, the status bar, the icons and the help

The GTK signal-signature and dialog-lifetime traps this app has already fallen into, plus the status bar's two tiers, the bundled icons and the help pages.

Part of [CLAUDE.md](../../CLAUDE.md). These are rules that cost a defect to learn; read the ones touching the area you are editing before you edit it.

- **The status line's per-second fields are measured once a second, not per frame.**
  `App::stored_rate`/`declared_rate` and the label's tooltip are refreshed on the same
  tick as the channel dump; the status line only formats what is already there. The
  badge's markup is likewise rewritten on a change of phase (twice a second), never on
  all sixty frames.
- **A `notify::<prop>` handler takes three parameters, a `value-changed` handler two.**
  `GObject::notify` passes `(GObject*, GParamSpec*, gpointer)` while
  `GtkSpinButton::value-changed` passes `(GtkSpinButton*, gpointer)`, so one callback cannot
  serve both: on the `notify::` connection the `GParamSpec*` lands in the `user_data` slot
  and the handler dereferences it as its `App*`. `G_CALLBACK` is a cast, so nothing warns.
  That is why the trigger panel's spin buttons and its dropdowns have separate thin entry
  points (`on_trigger_field_changed`, `on_trigger_drop_changed`) onto one
  `publish_trigger_fields()`: changing the edge or Normal/Single dropdown used to segfault
  outright. `UDPSCOPE_PROBE_FIELDS_MS` is the guard.
- **`MeasureDialog` and `MathDialog` are brace-initialised *positionally* in `src/ui.cpp`**, so a field
  added in the middle of either silently shifts every argument after it: add at the end of the widget group
  and read the initialiser in the same commit. A row array widened by a new control is the same trap from
  the other side -- a `rows[N]` that was not grown shows a control the sync never touches, and the compiler
  says so as an out-of-bounds warning on `rows`.
- **A control that cannot affect the current type is *hidden*, not disabled**: the trigger's band row is
  hidden for `dropout`, the measurement's for every non-crossing type, and the node editor's median row for
  every op but `de-noise`. A greyed row is a question the user can see and cannot answer.
- **`GtkDropDown`'s `notify::selected` arrives after the `set_selected()` that caused it
  returns**, so the `updating_panels` flag — set around a programmatic write and cleared when
  it returns — does *not* suppress it. Where the write is part of a readout the handler reads
  back, that is a feedback loop: `sync_window_display()` writes a value rounded for reading
  into the window entry and picks the unit for it, and the late notify had
  `on_window_unit_changed()` re-parse that rounded text, turning a 500 s request into
  499.98 s. The guard is `App::window_sync_unit` — the unit we last synced — and a selection
  equal to it is ours, since GTK only notifies on a change. Any new control that both writes
  and reads a `GtkDropDown` needs the same shape; the flag alone is not enough.
- **The header bar's buttons are icon-only**, so headless probes must reach them
  through the `App` pointers (`trigger_toggle`, `pause_button`, …), not via
  `find_labelled_button()`. The **pane switches are toolbar buttons** too (`cursors_toggle`,
  `measures_toggle`, `math_toggle` -- packed with `header_bar_pack_end()`, where the **first** packed
  is the rightmost, and the bar is an *ancestor* rather than the parent because packing parents into
  an internal box), and the cursors pane owns its own
  **Reset** button rather than the overflow menu owning one for it. The dump prints
  `panel controls: … ; toolbar, left to right: …` to say where they are and in what order. The widget
  tree's child order *is* the visual order left to right, so that line reads as the *reverse* of the
  pack order -- it is how an arrangement gets checked with no screenshot, and it is what finally
  settled the pack-order rule above (two comments in `build_toolbar()` disagreed with each other and
  one of them with reality): it is computed on the first *tick*, because the dump
  runs after the window is destroyed and asking GTK about a widget then is four criticals, which is
  how the first version of that line earned them. What stays in the menu is what acts on the *data*
  (Fit, Export, Configurations) and the one editor that is not a pane (the layout editor): the signal list
  is a *tab* of the sidebar, so there is nothing left to reveal or hide about it. The Arm/Disarm button in the trigger panel still has text.
- **Seven of this app's icons are its own, and they are a `GResource` compiled into the
  binary.** No icon theme has a glyph for an oscilloscope trigger, a pair of cursors or a
  measurement ruler, and the stock names those buttons used to carry said something else
  entirely: a *record dot* for the trigger and three different **magnifiers** for cursors,
  measurements and math. `src/icons/scalable/actions/udpscope-{trigger,cursors,measure,events,resize-rows,tab-measure,tab-signals}-symbolic.svg`
  are the seven action icons. `udpscope-math-symbolic` left with the toolbar toggle that was its last
  user; `udpscope-measure-symbolic` **stayed**, because the Preferences window's Plot page carries it --
  an icon with a live user is not an orphan, whatever the toggle that introduced it did -- and it is
  the Preferences window's icon, not the tab's.

  The two **tabs** got glyphs of their own, and each is a *pair* rather than one of the icons above.
  `udpscope-tab-measure-symbolic` is two cursors beside the ruler they read against — each a cap over two
  bold dashes, beside a ruler of two bands with three marks between them and **no end caps** (a closed
  frame reads as a rectangle, and costs a fifth of the ink on two lines that say nothing) — and
  `udpscope-tab-signals-symbolic` is a sine crossing its dashed level, beside two bold channel rows. They
  are not reuses, because a glyph the toolbar already carries means two things the moment a tab shows it
  too; instead the *trigger's* own icon (`udpscope-trigger-symbolic`) was redrawn to the Signals pill's
  picture, so the pill and the button that turns the trigger on are recognisably about the same thing.
  The wave is a **full period and not a hump**: a crest and a trough are what make it read as a wave
  rather than as a hill, and the level's dashes survive between the crossings. (A hump was tried and
  reverted — it named the "above the level" half of a trigger and lost the crossings, which is the half
  that matters.)
  Both are **32x16** composites drawn **bold** — one thick band, two thick dashes, few features — because
  at this size a thin wave or a 1px tick reads as *texture* rather than as a shape, which is what "not
  clear" looks like. Wider than tall on purpose: a 16px square cell carries one motif, not a pair. And
  **GDK paints an icon into a square box whatever the document's aspect** (measured:
  `gtk_icon_theme_lookup_icon()` at 32 reports `32x32`, and librsvg fits it to `32x16`), so the pair is
  letterboxed rather than stretched — and the pill's image is given `pixel_size` 32 in `name_side_tabs()`,
  which draws the artwork at the size it is written, so its bars stay crisp. Every glyph here is
  **inset two pixels**, because art flush with the cell edge is what a button's padding or a crop takes a
  pixel off, and a fractional scale is what would blur it, which is why nothing is drawn at 24 or 48. The
  two tab glyphs measure 29% and 30% ink, inside the range the icons above them set.
- **A shortcut table row's `accel` is GTK accelerator syntax, and a pointer gesture has
  none.** `src/shortcuts.cpp`'s strings are handed to `AdwShortcutsItem`, which parses them
  with `gtk_accelerator_parse()` — so they are `"space"`, `"<Control>e"`, `"<Control>slash"`,
  `"plus minus"` (a space-separated pair is the "either of these" form the label draws as
  `+ / -`), never the prose `"Ctrl+E"` or `"+ / -"`. Neither GTK's syntax nor libadwaita's
  knows a **wheel or a drag**: `"Wheel"` costs a `Failed to parse` warning and draws an empty
  cell. Those six rows therefore carry `accel = ""` and put the prose in `subtitle`, which is
  the one field that is free text. A row added with a parse error is otherwise silent — the
  overview still opens and the row is simply blank — so read the probe run's stderr for
  `Failed to parse` after touching either table.
- **The status bar is two tiers, and the dump reads the detail one.** `format_glance()` writes
  the bar and `format_detail()` writes both the popover's prose and `App::status_detail`, which
  is what `exit_probe_step3`/`exit_probe_step2` copy into `dbg_mode_live`/`dbg_mode_triggered`.
  Those two used to read the *label*, and the label no longer carries `packets`, `gaps`,
  `plot 1:` or the buffer figures — so a `gtk_label_get_text()` there would silently reduce
  every documented `mode …:` assertion to four fields. The glance line's state field is **one
  word from a fixed set** (`connecting`, `live`, `paused`, `armed`, `capturing`, `event held`,
  `disarmed`) for the layout reason above; a word **wider than the widest already there**, or a
  field whose width tracks the stream, breaks the row the plot is laid out under. The set may
  grow — `connecting` was added for the no-CONFIG state — but only on that condition, and the
  check is the dump's `max_glance_chars`. `connecting` is derived from `have_config` alone and
  sits **ahead of every other branch**, including the display mode's: with no signal list, every
  other word claims something that does not exist yet. The `mode` prose branches the same way for
  the same reason, which is what keeps the two tiers from disagreeing.
- **The ⓘ popover's widgets are built once and only their text is set.** It is visible when the
  tick updates it, so a rebuild is a per-frame relayout of a widget on screen.
  `update_status_popover()` only ever calls `gtk_label_set_text()`, and `popover_rebuilds` in
  the dump is the assertion.
- **The About dialog, the help window and the shortcut overview are opened by `show_about()`,
  `show_help()` and `show_shortcuts()`, and each closes with the matching call.** There is
  exactly **one `GtkWindow`** among the three — the paged help window. It closes with
  `gtk_window_close()`, which emits `close-request` so the handler that nulls the file-scope
  pointer runs. `gtk_window_destroy()` does **not** emit that signal and must not be used — the
  math dialog fell into exactly this trap, and the pointer then points at a dead widget until the
  next attempt to open the same window. The other two — the About dialog (an `AdwAboutDialog`)
  and the shortcut overview (an `AdwShortcutsDialog`) — are **`AdwDialog`s and not `GtkWindow`s**:
  they close with `adw_dialog_close()` and clear on `::closed`, there being no `::close-request`
  on an `AdwDialog`. Both share one `on_dialog_closed()` handler keyed by a **pointer to the
  pointer** it must null (`&g_about`, `&g_shortcuts`), which is what keeps one handler honest for
  two dialogs. One `GtkWidget*` (or `AdwDialog*`) per window, nulled in its own close handler, is
  the shape that prevents the double-open defect across all three.
- **`build_info.cpp` is generated, never committed.** `cmake/write_build_info.cmake` runs at
  configure time (so `add_executable` can name the file) and again on every build through
  `udpscope_build_info` (so the commit and the timestamp belong to the binary that is running).
  `git` absent leaves `kCommit` at `"unknown"` and the build succeeds. The About dialog and the
  `[help]` probe both read `kVersion`, `kCommit` and `kTimestamp` from it; `settings=` in the
  probe reads `config_dir()`, which is the path the session file is written to.
- **The keyboard zoom's modifiers are not the wheel's.** `+`/`-` with **Ctrl** restricts to x
  and with **Alt** to y, while the wheel keeps upstream's Shift = x / Ctrl = y convention. The
  two cannot agree: Shift is unusable on the keyboard path because `key_from()` folds `'+'` and
  `'='` onto `kKeyZoomIn` — `+` *is* Shift+`=` on common layouts, so a bare zoom-in already
  arrives with `Mod::Shift` set. Ctrl+Alt together zooms neither axis, which needs no special
  case. The guards are `deps/plotter`'s own `ctrl_plus_zooms_only_x` and `alt_plus_zooms_only_y`
  tests, plus `UDPSCOPE_PROBE_ZOOMKEYS_MS`.
- **A help page is one `.txt`, one `<file>` line in the GResource manifest, and one `kPages`
  row.** The bodies are Pango markup in a second GResource (`--c-name=udpscope_help`, so its
  generated symbols cannot collide with the icons'), validated with `pango_parse_markup()` at
  load; a page that fails either lookup or parse renders a one-line stand-in and is excluded from
  `parsed`. `UDPSCOPE_PROBE_HELP_MS`'s `parsed` must equal `pages`.
  A page may also carry screenshots (`HelpPage::images`, a null-terminated list of resources).
  They are `GtkPicture`s **with a height request**: one created `can_shrink` asks for *no* height
  at all inside a box, so without the request it is allocated nothing and the page renders its text
  with a silent gap where its screenshots should be — which is what the first version did.
- **A `GtkPaned` hands its start child at least its minimum unless the position says otherwise.**
  Putting the events pane in a paned is what makes its width the user's to drag -- but with the
  position left alone, `shrink-start-child` or not, the pane's minimum is reserved as an empty column
  while it is *closed*, and the plot pays for a pane nobody opened. The position is the only knob that
  says "no room": store the width when it is closed (reading `gtk_paned_get_position()` *before*
  zeroing it) and set 0, restoring it when the pane opens. `gtk_paned_set_shrink_start_child(TRUE)` is
  still needed, or the minimum would clamp even a zero position.
- **An unrevealed `GtkRevealer` measures 0x0 and is still given the leftover width.** `reveal_child
  = FALSE` makes both the revealer's minimum and its natural size zero -- and its box then hands it
  everything the expanding sibling beside it did not claim, so a *collapsed* pane reserved a
  310-pixel empty column between the window edge and a plot drawn 630 pixels wide in a 1270-pixel
  window. Every vertical revealer in the side panel hides this, because there the leftover goes down
  instead of across. `gtk_widget_set_visible()` is what a layout honours, so anything that must not
  take room has to be hidden and not merely unrevealed; the revealer keeps the slide while the pane
  *is* open. The allocated width is how this was found -- the revealer's own measure said 0.
  **The sidebar is a tab stack now, and has no `GtkRevealer` left in it**: an `AdwViewSwitcher`
  above an `AdwViewStack`, each page a `GtkScrolledWindow` of its own (the two pages are different
  heights, so one shared scroller would leave a switch scrolled where the new page never asked to
  be). The reason is the one this trap teaches: five sections competing for one 320 px column left
  every one of them short of room. A *feature's* on/off is no longer a visibility at all -- the
  **cursors'** toggle sets its pane's **body** insensitive -- the readout has nothing to show with the
  instruments off -- and the *body* and not the pane, because the pane's heading carries its own switch
  (see the next bullet). The **trigger's body is deliberately never disabled**: 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. It used to go insensitive with the mode, which left the settings unreachable
  exactly when a user wanted to change them; `trigger panel sensitive …=1` is the regression guard, and a
  `0` there means the configuration has been locked out again. The
  trap itself does not go away with the widget: a stack's hidden page measures 0x0 too and is still
  given the leftover width, so **ask about state, not about size** carries over unchanged. Every
  allocation read in the sidebar is a debug capture, and each reads 0 on the page that is *not*
  current -- a change in what the reading means, not a defect, and no functional code may depend on
  those numbers.
- **`AdwViewSwitcherPolicy.narrow` still draws a label; an *empty title* is what makes a pill an icon.**
  Measured on libadwaita 1.10: with `narrow` and a title, the pill holds a `GtkImage` **and** a
  `GtkLabel` — 48px of "Measure" inside a 54px pill — so the policy alone does not give an icon-only tab
  bar. The sidebar's pages therefore have **no title** (their `name` is what identifies them to
  `select_side_tab()` and the session file) and the pills are *named in code* instead: the first tick
  calls `name_side_tabs()`, which walks the switcher's children — the pills are there in page order, and
  `AdwViewSwitcherButton` is not a public type, so there is no type check to make — and sets each pill's
  **tooltip and 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
  `switcher: … pills=2 labels=0 names=2` is the reading for all three facts at once.
- **An *overlaid* sidebar covers the plot, so a drag out of it has nowhere to land.** `collapsed` in an
  `AdwOverlaySplitView` means the sidebar sits *on* the plot rather than beside it: the pointer is over the
  list, never over a drop target, and a signal can be dragged but not dropped. `row_drag_sidebar()` hides
  the sidebar on `drag-begin` and restores it on `drag-end` — only when collapsed, because side by side the
  plot is already visible and hiding the list the drag started in would be startling. `pane drag: sidebar
  hidden for the drag=1 restored after it=1` is the reading; the state is forced collapsed the way the
  sidebar probe forces it.
- **A stock icon name has to be one *Adwaita* has, and a blank button is the failure mode.** The two
  panes' `[edit]` buttons are `document-edit-symbolic` (the pencil: edit) and `object-select-symbolic`
  (the check: done). The done one was `emblem-ok-symbolic`, which breeze ships and **Adwaita does not** —
  so the button that leaves configuration mode was blank, which no other reading could see: the button
  worked, the layout was unchanged, and only `pane edits:` (the two names and
  `gtk_icon_theme_has_icon()`'s verdict, clicked into each mode) would say so. Check a name against
  `/usr/share/icons/Adwaita` before using it; a name found under `breeze` is not an answer.
- **A pane's heading switch and the header bar's button are one control in two places.** Each pane's
  heading (`build_trigger_panel()` builds the trigger's, `cursors-panel.ui` has the cursors' in its
  `head`) carries a `GtkSwitch` that runs the *same action* the toolbar button runs, and
  `sync_panel_switches()` re-reads each pair from the toolbar's state after any change — so clicking
  either end moves both, and `panel switches: trigger=1/1 cursors=1/1` is the reading. Two traps:
  a `GtkSwitch` emits `notify::active` for a *programmatic* write as well, so the sync holds a guard
  (`App::panel_switch_sync`) or the program's own write comes back as a click; and the switcher must
  stay *out* of what the pane disables, because a control inside an insensitive parent cannot be
  clicked — a switch that greyed out with its own pane could never turn it back on. That is why the
  sensitive target is the pane's **body** (`trigger_body`, `cursors_body`) and not the pane.
- **A list box outlives the children of the pane it sits in, and the teardown order is not yours to
  choose.** Tearing the window down finalizes the events pane's buttons, then the list box, and the
  list's own `selected-rows-changed` then reaches a handler holding the freed pointers: four
  `Gtk-CRITICAL`s from `gtk_widget_set_sensitive` and a read of memory nobody owns. `close-request` is
  *not* the hook -- `UDPSCOPE_EXIT_AFTER_MS` ends the self-check with `gtk_window_destroy()`, which does
  not emit it. The hook that does work is `App::window`: every teardown path clears it *before* the
  widgets go (the exit probe says so in a comment: "stop the tick before the widgets go"), so a handler
  that can fire during teardown checks that first, rather than asking GTK whether a pointer is still a
  widget.
- **A `GtkPicture`'s natural size *is* its content, so a size request on it is a floor, not a cap.**
  A 480x160 texture in a row of a list claims the row's whole width and squeezes the text beside it
  out of the row -- the box gives a non-expanding child its natural size and grows it further when
  the expanding child has nothing left to take. Give the picture a **frame** whose size request equals
  the **scaled texture's** size (natural == minimum, which is what stops the box growing it), and
  scale the texture once at decode: it is also what keeps a per-row cache at 12 KB per picture rather
  than 300.
- **A pointer to a widget inside a list survives the list being rebuilt.** `events_thumb` named a row's
  picture across `refresh_events_pane()`, which removes every row first: the next reader of that
  pointer got a `Gtk-CRITICAL` from `gtk_picture_get_paintable` on freed memory (the four criticals
  read as "the pane is empty"). A rebuild has to null what it is about to destroy, not only rebuild it.
- **`gtk_picture_set_filename()` can render nothing, silently.** It hands the file to the image
  loader's sandboxed, asynchronous decoder, which on this machine fails without a message: the
  picture keeps a *paint-able* and takes an allocation, so a probe that checks
  `gtk_picture_get_paintable()` reads success while the pane shows an empty rectangle (the event
  pane's preview did exactly that). `gdk_texture_new_from_filename()` decodes the same file on this
  thread and `gtk_picture_set_paintable()` hands over the result -- and a NULL texture at least says
  so. A picture that must be on screen is also a picture with a **height request**: `can_shrink`
  alone asks for no height at all in a box.
- **A cache that is the *only* source of a widget's content must be created by the thing that reads
  it.** The event pane's thumbnails come from an `EventThumbCache` hung off the list box with
  `g_object_set_data_full`, and `event_preview_texture()` answers out of that cache or not at all.
  Nothing ever created it — so for as long as the pane existed, **every** row came up without a
  picture, which is what "event screenshot are unusable and sometime missing" was. A missing cache
  there is not a slow path, it is a blank one; `event_thumb_cache()` therefore creates one on first
  use. Owned by the **list**, because nothing else has the pane's lifetime: textures of a list that
  no longer exists are so much held memory, and the destroy notify is where they are unref'd.
- **Hover magnification is a tooltip, not a popover of ours.** A row's thumbnail is 138 px wide and
  the stored preview is 480: the small one says *which* event this is, and the zoom says what is in
  it. GTK's own tooltip (`gtk_widget_set_has_tooltip` + `query-tooltip` + `gtk_tooltip_set_custom`)
  is shown, placed, dismissed **and destroyed** by GTK, and takes no pointer grab. A popover per row
  would be a parented widget to unparent on every rebuild of the pane — one defect below — and a
  grab to lose, for a thing with no interaction in it. Two details: `can_shrink` must be FALSE on the
  tooltip's picture or the tooltip is given the smallest size its content allows (the opposite of the
  point), and the path handed to the handler has to be **owned by the closure**
  (`g_signal_connect_data` with a destroy func), since the record it came from is a loop variable.
- **Unparenting a popover inside its own `closed` emission is a use-after-free.** Dismissals go
  through `gtk_popover_popdown()`, which emits `closed`; a handler that unparents the popover there
  drops the reference the parent held, the widget dies, and GTK's own popdown path then runs on freed
  memory — `gtk_popover_get_autohide: assertion 'GTK_IS_POPOVER (popover)' failed`, on every menu
  entry that dismisses its popover, which is every entry there is. `on_popover_closed()` therefore
  defers the unparent by one idle and holds a reference across it
  (`g_idle_add_full(..., g_object_ref(popover), g_object_unref)`), so the popover outlives the
  emission that dismissed it.
- **`find_accel()` masks the modifiers before comparing.** Lock, Num-Lock and the pointer buttons
  all arrive in `GdkModifierType`, so an unmasked compare matches no table row at all once
  Caps Lock is on.
- **A UI file is data, and a mistake in it is a runtime abort, not a build failure.** `.ui` files live
  in `src/ui/` and are compiled into the binary by the third GResource (`udpscope-ui.gresource.xml`,
  `prefix=/org/udpscope/ui`), loaded with `gtk_builder_new_from_resource()`.

  `preprocess="xml-stripblanks"` catches a *malformed* file at build time -- which is why it is on
  every file in every bundle -- and that includes an XML rule easy to break by hand: **a comment may
  not contain a double hyphen**, so prose written the way every C++ comment in this project is written
  (` -- like this -- `) fails the build with a caret under the offending character. Use an em dash in a
  UI file.

  What it cannot catch is a file that is valid XML but wrong for GTK, and that is what
  `cmake --build build --target test-ui` is for: it round-trips every file through
  `blueprint-compiler`, which type-checks properties and child types against the GIR -- for *every*
  file, rather than for the windows a probe happens to open (see
  [build-and-run.md](build-and-run.md)). Without that check, `GtkBuilder` reports such a file with a
  **`Gtk-ERROR`, which aborts the process** by default, so a window built from bad markup takes the
  application down rather than failing to appear.

  Two more paid for: a `GIcon` property takes an **object**, not a name
  (`<property name="icon">foo</property>` is read as a reference to another object and fails with
  "Object with ID foo not found" -- the icon is a nested `GThemedIcon`); and a `.ui` big enough to
  exceed 4095 characters needs `-Wno-overlength-strings` on its generated source, because
  glib-compile-resources writes each file as one C string literal and the warning fires on generated
  *data*.
- **Deprecated widgets may be the right widget, as long as no deprecated *function* is called.** The
  shortcut overview is a `GtkShortcutsWindow` (`gtk/deprecated/`, deprecated in 4.20) because libadwaita's
  successor, `AdwShortcutsDialog`, cannot draw a mouse gesture: `AdwShortcutsItem` has no icon property at
  all, so its shortcut cell can only be an accelerator, and its cell reads "No Shortcut" when there is
  none. `GtkShortcutsShortcut` has one generic gesture type whose `icon` *is* drawn. Loading the window
  from a `.ui` and presenting it as a `GtkWindow` names no deprecated function, so the build stays at its
  four warnings. When such a window closes, its builder is **replaced on the next opening**, not kept: the
  window belongs to the builder's object list and a destroyed `GtkWindow` cannot be presented again.
- **An `AdwDialog` is not a `GtkWindow`, and not every toplevel is a widget either.** The preferences
  are an `AdwDialog`, which is a `GObject` that a *window* presents, so it cannot parent a
  `GtkFileDialog`: the form keeps the window it was opened with (`PrefsForm::parent`, the caller's) and
  hands that to the picker. Two things follow, and each cost a run. In its floating presentation mode an
  `AdwDialog` adds a **native surface** to `gtk_window_get_toplevels()`, so that list holds things that
  are neither `GtkWindow`s nor widgets -- `GTK_WINDOW()` on one is a segfault inside `gtk_window_close()`,
  and `g_object_unref()` on one is a `GLib-GObject-CRITICAL`. Anything walking it must test
  `GTK_IS_WIDGET()` *and* `GTK_IS_WINDOW()` first, and a probe should not walk it at all where a
  cancellable will do.
- **A folder chooser outlives the dialog that opened it unless something cancels it.** The picker's
  answer writes a row, and the row is gone once the dialog closes. `PrefsForm::browse_cancel` is
  cancelled by the `closed` handler and replaced by the next chooser: one open picker at a time, and none
  that can call back into a cleared form. It is also how a probe takes the cancel path without a mouse.
- **An `AdwApplicationWindow` refuses a titlebar, and refuses it by *aborting*.** `gtk_window_set_titlebar()`
  on one is a fatal `Adwaita-ERROR` (`is not supported for AdwApplicationWindow`), not a warning that
  leaves the window merely ugly. The main window is therefore a `GtkApplicationWindow` -- an Adw window
  would want its header as an `AdwToolbarView`'s top bar instead -- and `build_toolbar()`'s `GtkHeaderBar`
  stays the window's own titlebar, which is also what gives the window its controls: a `GtkHeaderBar`
  draws them only as a titlebar.
- **libadwaita's rows do not share one property set, and a `.ui` is where that shows.** An
  `AdwEntryRow` is an `AdwPreferencesRow`: it has a `title` and **no `subtitle`**. `AdwSpinRow` and
  `AdwSwitchRow` are `AdwActionRow`s and have both. A hint about an entry -- "empty = unicast" --
  therefore belongs in the *group's* `description`, which is the better place for it anyway: a
  placeholder vanishes as soon as there is a value, and a description does not. And an `AdwDialog` has
  **no `content` property**: its child is a plain `<child>`, where an `AdwToolbarView` does take
  `content`. Both mistakes are a `Gtk-ERROR` at load, so both abort the process, and both are caught by
  the probe that opens every window rather than by anything at build time.
- **A dialog reachable from two windows cannot own its state in either.** The preferences open from
  the main window's menu *and* from the source chooser, which exists before `App` does (`main()`
  chooses a source, then builds the model and the UI). The widgets therefore live in a `PrefsForm` the
  caller owns — `App::prefs`, `Chooser::prefs` — and what a change *means* is a callback, because it
  means different things on the two sides. Both are plain members of their owners, on the same stack
  frame, so nothing can outlive the frame that built it.
- **A transient window is destroyed before its parent.** `chooser_finish()` destroys the preferences
  window before the chooser, and nulls the pointer *before* the destroy so `close-request` cannot
  re-enter a dead window. GTK does not promise to take a transient down with its parent, and a window
  whose handlers point into a returned stack frame is how this project already earned one
  use-after-free.

- **A `_` in a label is a mnemonic only on a widget that was asked for one.** GTK reads the underscore as
  "the next letter is this widget's accelerator, and draw it underlined", so wherever the widget has not
  been asked, GTK draws the underscore *literally* -- which is what `_Directory`, `_Server`, `Keep _events`
  and eleven more titles did in the two preference forms, for as long as they existed. Two different
  switches, FALSE by default in both cases: `GtkLabel`/`GtkButton` take `use-underline`, and the rows take
  **`AdwPreferencesRow:use-underline`** ("whether an embedded underline in the title indicates a mnemonic").
  The row classes that carry it are not all related -- `AdwEntryRow` has its own, while
  `AdwSpinRow`/`AdwComboRow`/`AdwSwitchRow` get it through `AdwActionRow` -- so `row_underlines()` asks by
  name on a `GObject` (`g_object_class_find_property`, then `g_object_get`) instead of casting to one row
  type: casting a row whose type is only forward-declared in that translation unit does not even compile.
  `test-ui` is what catches the property being set on a class that does not have it -- it validates every
  property against the GIR, inherited ones included.
- **A mnemonic is unique per window, and the first match wins.** `_Cancel` and `_Connect` both claimed C in
  one form, so `Alt+C` could only ever reach one of them and the other's marker was unreachable -- worse
  than no mnemonic, because the underscore is there in the source for a reader to trust. `Conn_ect` freed
  it. Rows on different pages of a preferences dialog may share a letter: an unshown page cannot be
  activated.

- **A `GtkExpander`'s child is not in the widget-parent chain.** `gtk_widget_get_parent()` on the widget an
  expander holds answers NULL, before *and* after the window is presented, while `gtk_expander_get_child()`
  returns it -- measured all three ways (the `.ui`'s `child` property, a code `gtk_expander_set_child()`, a
  code-made expander). So a probe that walks parents to prove a widget is inside a panel reads 0 for
  everything behind an expander, on a panel that is entirely correct; the walk has to start at
  `gtk_expander_get_child()`. That mistake cost a false regression, a "the property does not attach it"
  conclusion drawn from it, and a pointless second root in the file before the throwaway program settled it.
  Related: `gtk_expander_set_child()` asserts that its child has no parent yet, so a block the `.ui` has
  already put in the panel cannot then be handed to an expander -- the file's `child` property is the right
  way, and it works.

- **`--` is not allowed inside an XML comment, and a `.ui` comment is XML.** `<!-- ... -- ... -->` is a parse
  error: `xml-stripblanks` fails the build, and `make test-ui` prints `FAIL <file>` with **no** message under
  it, because blueprint-compiler's decompiler aborts on the malformed XML before it can report anything --
  the bare `FAIL` line is that mistake and nothing else. The house style for a dash in prose is the em dash,
  which is why no other `.ui` in `src/ui/` contains a double hyphen. It has cost two slices a debugging
  round for one character.

- **A `.ui` file instantiates its objects once, so anything whose *count* is data cannot live in one.** The
  layout editor's overlay buttons are one per row, plus one per boundary between them: a `GtkBuilder` would
  hand back the first and nothing for the rest, and there is no "prototype the code copies" in the format.
  They are therefore code, and what they share -- the icon, the two CSS classes that make a small round
  on-screen-display control, and the size -- is one function (`layout_overlay_button()`) rather than three
  copies. The same reason keeps the math editor's palette and parameter rows in code: their count follows the
  model, not the file. `.ui` files are for the frame, and the frame is what has no count.

- **A code-added child of a header bar lands *after* the file's, so going first means using a slot.**
  `gtk_header_bar_pack_start()` appends to the start group and there is no prepend. The time-window control is
  code -- its menu's rows come from the buffer's limits -- and belongs at the bar's head, so `header-bar.ui`
  declares an empty `window_control_slot` box as its first start child and the code appends the control into
  it. Packing the control straight onto the bar would have put it to the right of everything the file packed,
  and `[udpscope] header:` (`window_button_w=130 bar_w=756`) is the reading that shows such a move.
- **`<child type="end">` is added leftwards-from-the-right, in document order.** A header bar's end group
  reads the *reverse* of the file: `header-bar.ui` declares menu, sidebar, math, measures, cursors and the
  screen shows cursors, measures, math, sidebar, menu. The three comments this replaced each had it wrong
  once, which is why the order is the file's now and a byte-for-byte diff of the probe is the check.

- **A widget can end up in the wrong container, and only a *structural* read notices.** `math_body` was
  written as a `<child>` of the *window* instead of the box above it when the math editor's frame moved into a
  `.ui`. A `GtkWindow` takes exactly one default `<child>`, so nothing failed: the body -- with the canvas and
  the parameter form inside it -- was left parentless, `visible` but never `mapped`, size `0x0`, drawing
  nothing. The symptom was "the editor opens and the canvas is blank", with the window sized around its
  remaining children. `check_ui` passes such a file; `xml-stripblanks` passes it; so does every probe that
  reads *values* off the widgets inside. What catches it is a reading that walks *up* from the widget
  (`in_dialog=1`) or asks whether it was ever given an allocation (`mapped=1`, `canvas=420x836`). When a frame
  moves into a file, the probe that proves it has to read the frame's *structure*, not only the numbers it
  holds.

- **A popover's autohide is only as good as its grab.** `GtkPopover` dismisses itself when it loses the
  pointer grab -- and the grab is the thing that can be missing: a window manager moving it, a nested popover
  (a `GtkDropDown`'s menu, which the time-window row has) taking it, and *every* headless run, where there is
  no manager to hand one out and the probes have to turn autohide off before a popover will stay up to be
  measured. The symptom is "sometimes it is awkward to close": a click anywhere else leaves the bubble up.
  `on_window_popover_press()` states the rule outright instead -- any press that reaches the window's own
  surface closes the window popover. That needs no hit test beyond the button, because a popover *is* its own
  surface and a click inside it never arrives; the button is left to its own click, whose toggle is what
  closes it. `[windowpop]` reads both halves, with autohide off so it is testing the rule and not the grab.

- **A notice shares the status line with the glance, so it has to *look* like a message.** The status bar
  renders `app.notice + "   |   " + glance` in one label, which is exactly where a reader skimming the
  routine text ("live · 9.97 kS/s · 2 s window") will not see it: a refused drop that said "plot 1 holds four
  signals already" was read as no feedback at all. While a notice is fresh the label carries the stock
  `.warning` class, so a message looks like a message and the class goes when the notice does. Two corollaries
  worth knowing: the line composes on its own cadence, so a notice can appear a beat after it was set (do not
  read the label in the same tick a handler ran), and a refusal should say what to *do* about it -- "drop it on
  another plot, or add a row with the layout editor (L)" rather than the bare statement of the limit.

- **The status line cannot cover the gap before the window exists, so a window does.** Between the chooser
  closing and `gtk_window_present()` there is no main loop at all: the chooser destroyed its own window,
  then `main()` allocates the sample buffer, waits for the first CONFIG or reads a recording, and
  `on_activate()` builds every panel -- at a few gigabytes of buffer that is the ten seconds a user reported
  as "the dialog disappeared and nothing happened". `loading_show()`/`loading_hide()` (in
  `source_dialog.cpp`, beside the chooser they continue) keep an `AdwWindow` on screen across it, raised in
  `main()` **before** the model is constructed and taken down in `on_activate()` **after** the present --
  either side is a frame of empty screen. Three rules it exists under:
  - **It must be painted before the caller blocks.** `gtk_window_present()` only queues the frame, and
    nothing after it runs a loop, so `loading_show()` ends in a nested `GMainLoop` quit by a timeout
    (the chooser's own idiom). Iterating pending events is *not* enough: a window needs a frame-clock
    cycle, and the frame clock only ticks while a loop runs.
  - **It says what the wait is, in words.** The spinner is frozen for the whole of it -- no loop -- and a
    progress bar would be a lie for the same reason, so the text carries the information: the address
    being connected to or the file being opened, and under it the buffer size, which is the number that
    explains the duration. It is `deletable=0` with no title buttons: a close button that cannot be
    serviced until the work is over is worse than none.
  - **Only the path that *asked* gets one.** `main()` raises it only when the chooser actually ran, which
    is why every documented probe (all of them pass `--server`) is on exactly the path it was before --
    and a `--server` run never had a window to lose, so the post-present notice is the right place for it.
    `loading_hide()` is a no-op when none is up, so `run_ui()` needs no notion of which path it is on.