Altui — an alternative text-based UI for UDB

Altui provides a modern and user-friendly alternative to plain UDB and to TUI mode. It's implemented using the textual Python package.

Warning: This is an experiment. It's buggy and has limited features. It may also stop working at any point.

Installation

1. Check out this repository:

   $ git clone https://github.com/undoio/altui.git
   

2. Run the install_deps.sh script passing a path where UDB is installed. For instance:

   $ cd altui/
   $ ./install_deps.sh /usr/local/undo
   

3. Source the file from your .udbinit/.gdbinit (see the documentation on initialisation files) by adding a line like this:

   source <PATH_TO_ALTUI>/source_this.py
   

   Alternatively, you can source the file only when needed running the command above in a UDB session.

How to use

In a UDB session use altui enable to enable altui mode. altui disable goes back to normal text mode.

Once altui is running you should see a large area in the bottom half of the screen showing a normal UDB terminal where you can type commands. The panel on the top will show the source code for the program you are debugging.

On the right there are a few panels with useful information: the backtrace, variables, bookmarks, etc. You can select these using your mouse. Keyboard-based navigation is not implemented yet.

Limitations

• The UI doesn't notice if the terminal it's running in is resized.

• Probably very slow with programs with a lot of threads, deep backtraces, etc.

• No support for configuration (like re-arranging panels).

• Many more not listed here! This is just a prototype.

You can report issues on GitHub issues. Alternatively, feel free to email Marco Barisione <mbarisione@undo.io> with questions, issues or suggestions.