Hiding instance variables in the EyeInspector or EyeExplorer

Question

Sometimes I am inspecting or exploring my dowmain objects which contains many instance variables. I want to exclude all of them excepting the current specific ones of the instance I am exploring.

Say I am inspecting MyObject with instance variables: text, size, status.

• dependents
• owner
• window
• announcer
• ...(lots of i.v.)
• text
• size
• status

I want to view:

• text
• size
• status

I have seen you can define the method inspectorClass, but is EyeInspector or EyeExplorer designed to configure this type of view? Should I subclass SelfEyeElement class?

Answer 1

I just tried and came up with this:

Imagine this is your class:

Object subclass: #MyClass
    instanceVariableNames: 'firstVariable secondVariable thirdVariable'
    classVariableNames: ''
    category: 'MyCategory'

Then make the following inspector class:

EyeInspector subclass: #MyClassInspector
    instanceVariableNames: ''
    classVariableNames: ''
    category: 'MyCategory'

Add the following class method to MyClass:

inspectorClass
    ^ MyClassInspector

And overwrite #addInstanceVariable: in MyClassInspector:

addInstancesVariable: elements
    elements add: (InstanceVariableEyeElement host: self object instVarName: #firstVariable).
    elements add: (InstanceVariableEyeElement host: self object instVarName: #secondVariable)

Inspect an instance of MyClass and it shows only firstVariable and secondVariable but not thirdVariable:

Very nice question!

Update: If you want an inspector that shows generally only instance variables specified in the class of an inspected object and not in superclasses of an inspected object you can use this #addInstanceVariable: in your inspector class:

addInstancesVariable: elements
    self object class instVarNames do: [:name |
        elements add: (InstanceVariableEyeElement host: self object instVarName: name) ]