Forum Discussion

dbattaglia's avatar
dbattaglia
Contributor
6 years ago

Code Explorer Panel Discontinued in TestComplete 14

I just read the release notes on TestComplete 14 (https://support.smartbear.com/testcomplete/docs/general-info/whats-new.html) and am a bit puzzled about the discontinuation of the Code Explorer panel.

 

"The Code Explorer panel is now deprecated. Starting from this version, it is hidden by default. The panel will be removed in one of the future releases."

 

How will developers navigate the project tree without the Code Explorer?

 

The tiny little dropdown box in the toolbar of the code editor is much less efficient than having a navigation tree like the Code Explorer panel.

 

Daniel

  • Dmitry_Nikolaev's avatar
    Dmitry_Nikolaev
    6 years ago

    Hello,

     

    Ok, there seems to be a confusion indeed. We are not going to improve the panel and will stop testing it in future versions of TestComplete to release resources for other testing tasks. However, there is no intention to remove it completely.

     

    We will delete the note about the panel's removal in the documentation to avoid further confusion.

  • tristaanogre's avatar
    tristaanogre
    Esteemed Contributor
    6 years ago

    I'll be honest... I don't use the Code Explorer much.  I use Project Explorer all the time and only use Code Explorer on occasion to research metrics... for that reason, having it on the code editor makes better sense for me so I'm right there, in the code, to be able to evaluate and potentially correct issues in code make-up.

    • dbattaglia's avatar
      dbattaglia
      Contributor
      6 years ago

      that's funny. we don't use the code metrics at all--oops, did i say that out loud?...

       

      i primarily use the Code Explorer panel as a navigation pane. it gives you a sorted list of all the assets.

       

      you sort of get that in the editor drop down--but only for the open file. you have no visibility of what files are in the current project.

       

      so, with the Code Explorer panel going away, you will have to go to two places to see everything you can see in one place today:

      Project Explorer for the list of all files

      Code Editor dropdown for the list of all code things in each file

      Code Metrics ...??? not sure where that is going. maybe just away...

      • Dmitry_Nikolaev's avatar
        Dmitry_Nikolaev
        Staff
        6 years ago

        Hello,

         

        The Code Explorer panel was an unpopular feature, so we hide it by default. However, it is still in TestComplete, and we are not going to remove it completely. To make it visible, open the Select Panel dialog (View | Select Panel...) and double-click the Code Explorer item.