unstable jumping behaviors of interactive window

[stevenlis]

Since the interactive window is able to scroll past the end, it has been acting very unstable:

1. If I have a DataFrame preview and half of that preview is covered, sometimes the other half would jump up and show on the screen if I click anywhere on the DataFrame.

2. If I click somewhere in a DataFrame above, sometimes the interactive window will jump to the last cell output in the bottom.

3. Mentioned in https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-python/issues/11349 interactive window won't jump to the latest output if I'm looking something way up in the interactive window outputs. I have to scroll down every single time to see it. I was told this is by design but I'm not quite sure if this makes much sense. If I run a new cell, that means wanna see its output. I think a more reasonable thing is to add a toggle for this or add an interactive window anchor icon on the top to control that.

[DavidKutu]

Thanks for your feedback @StevenLi-DS. As for number 3. We'll have to discuss that in our next triage.

With number 1 and 2 I understand that they happen sometimes. Could you clarify that? Also, we'd really appreciate if you could share any steps you know that reproduce the either 1 or 2.

I've been trying to reproduce myself and only found these steps to reproduce 1:

1. restart the kernel
2. create space with whatever cells
3. print the head of a DF
4. scroll a bit up
5. click the DF

Actual Result
The window scrolls to see the whole DF only the first time.

Expected Result
Either always scroll automatically or don't scroll at all.

Let me know if that is what you mean.

[stevenlis]

@DavidKutu For number 1 and number 2, I think it's better to not let the windows scroll itself at all.

It seems like both happen when there is a datafram doesn't fully show in the interactive window, please see an example of 1

This is supper annoying when you try to select something.

[DavidKutu]

Thanks, that was very helpful. I was able to repro it like that.

[greazer]

This is likely a dupe of #1778. I'm going to raise the priority as I believe this is a regression.

[greazer]

Pretty sure that this is a regression We should investigate for May since we have a consistent repro.

[stevenlis]

@greazer Please consider number 3 as well. It has made my workflow really hard.

[rchiodo]

The fix for this is in master now (should be in our next insider's build assuming the build finishes).

I've added a new setting for problem 3 - python.dataScience.alwaysScrollOnNewCell. If this is set to true (defaults to false), the interactive window will always scroll when getting a new cell to the bottom.

[stevenlis]

@rchiodo thanks for that! would you guys also consider adding this into the command or have an Anchor icon on the top of the interactive window?

[rchiodo]

Not at the moment no, but feel free to make another issue for it.

Our next release should have this fix in it as well. It was ported to the release branch last night.

[IanMatthewHuff]

Validated.

[stevenlis]

@rchiodo This happens again and the cells in interactive windows jump around again, but I haven't found a pattern to reproduce it at this moment. Have you observed it under v2020.12.414227025

[rchiodo]

The repro I have is to output something that renders itself using javascript. Like a LaTex equation. The scroll happens before the render sometimes and then it ends up in the wrong spot.

[stevenlis]

@rchiodo Here's what I'm experiencing now: #4276 (comment)