nubank / morse

A graphical, interactive tool for browsing Clojure data

Morse

Rationale

One of the prime value propositions in using a Lisp language is that you should be able to connect to and interact with your live program. Doing so allows you to access and explore the program state. The typical access mechanism for Clojure programs is the REPL, but its textual output is not ideal for robust data exploration. Instead, an interface that allows you to browse and navigate the data in your live program is a more ideal environment for understanding. Morse, like REBL before it, provides a browser for Clojure data that allows active traversal into and back out of nested forms. However, it's not always feasible to execute the browser process inside of the live program. Therefore, Morse provides a way to inspect the live program's data remotely, but also provides an in-process mode if needed.

This software is considered an alpha release and subject to change.

Morse runs remotely to or within your application JVM process, and can be used at dev-time without adding any runtime deps. The UI is written in JavaFX.

Quick links:

• Install Clojure
• Morse User Guide
• Morse UI Guide
• Replicant Server
• Ask Clojure Q&A forum

Requirements

• Clojure, 1.10.0 or higher
• Java 11 or higher

Release Information

Latest release:

deps.edn dependency information:

Latest Morse Git dependency coordinate:

io.github.nubank/morse {:git/tag "v2023.04.30.01" :git/sha "d99b09c"}

Installing Morse as a Clojure CLI tool

Morse is available as a Clojure CLI tool and may be installed and upgraded via:

clj -Ttools install-latest :lib io.github.nubank/morse :as morse

Usage:

See the Morse Guide to learn how to use Morse for your purposes.

Docs

• API.md

Contributing

Morse is open source, developed internally at Nubank. Issues can be filed using GitHub issues for this project. Initially, we prefer to do development internally and are not accepting pull requests or patches.

Copyright and License

Copyright © 2023 Nu North America, Inc

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.

morse's Issues

Preferences still references "rebl"

morse/src/dev/nu/morse/config.clj

Line 9 in d868743

(def ^:private config-dir (io/file ".rebl"))

I was surprised to find a ".rebl/prefs.edn" file on my machine.

Feature request: Hotkey for 'Focus Nav'

Thanks for writing Morse! I like it.

It would be nice to be able to quickly jump to the Nav area, type in something (e.g. a 0) and then jump back to the browser with Ctrl/Cmd+B.

`nav->` quick switching

It would be useful to be able to quickly switch between many nav-> inputs. I have this need when I'm switching between things which are slightly different and I want to select different data from them. Especially when I re-run my code, and rebrowse into it, my nav-> is lost unless I have copied it before hand.

A recent history dropdown might be a useful way to implement this.

:host property is ignored

morse doesn't show any errors in the UI when it cannot connect to a remote, you just get a stacktrace written to stdout of the process

`Ctrl-D` is shadowed on macOS

Ctrl-D is a globally supported key binding for forward character deletion, which is a very basic and very common editing operation, but it's assigned todef as.

If I'm not mistaken, even VS Code defines Ctrl-D as the deleteRight action by default.

The alternative on Apple keyboards is to use Fn-Delete, which is not so commonly known (probably), neither as convenient as Ctrl-D (especially on smaller, custom keyboards).

Ctrl+Shift+D however is not defined by default, so that would be one alternative as a default binding.

It would be also more memorable, since the Viewer: dropdown right next to it also has a Shifted shortcut.

To prevent further complaints about key bindings, I concur that #3 would be a great feature.

Feature request: expose hotkeys for configuration

launch-remote can't process results (read+string on a string instead of reader)

Repro:

1. Server:

   clj 
   -Sdeps '{:deps {io.github.clojure/data.alpha.replicant-server {:git/tag """v2023.04.25.01""" :git/sha """039bea0"""}}}' 
   -X clojure.data.alpha.replicant.server.prepl/start :host """localhost""" :port 7272

   (triple quotes because Windows...)
2. Client:

   clj 
   -Sdeps '{:deps {io.github.nubank/morse {:git/tag """v2023.04.27.01""" :git/sha """7a85e46"""}}}' 
   -X dev.nu.morse/launch-remote :port 7272

Observed behavior:
any evaluation in the UI results in error:

The error:

{:via
 [{:type java.lang.ClassCastException,
   :message
   "class java.lang.String cannot be cast to class clojure.lang.LineNumberingPushbackReader (java.lang.String is in module java.base of loader 'bootstrap'; clojure.lang.LineNumberingPushbackReader is in unnamed module of loader 'app')",
   :at [clojure.core$read_PLUS_string invokeStatic "core.clj" 3782]}],
 :trace
 [[clojure.core$read_PLUS_string invokeStatic "core.clj" 3782]
  [clojure.core$read_PLUS_string invokeStatic "core.clj" 3771]
  [clojure.core$read_PLUS_string invokeStatic "core.clj" 3771]
  [clojure.core$read_PLUS_string invoke "core.clj" 3771]
  [dev.nu.morse.ui$init_remote$fn__13714$fn__13719$fn__13727
   invoke
   "ui.clj"
   565]
  [clojure.core.server$remote_prepl$fn__9088$fn__9090
   invoke
   "server.clj"
   322]
  [clojure.core.server$remote_prepl$fn__9088 invoke "server.clj" 321]
  [clojure.lang.AFn run "AFn.java" 22]
  [java.lang.Thread run "Thread.java" 833]],
 :cause
 "class java.lang.String cannot be cast to class clojure.lang.LineNumberingPushbackReader (java.lang.String is in module java.base of loader 'bootstrap'; clojure.lang.LineNumberingPushbackReader is in unnamed module of loader 'app')",
 :phase :read-eval-result}

This is because read+string receives a string instead of a LineNumberingPushbackReader on this line: https://github.com/nubank/morse/blob/main/src/dev/nu/morse/ui.clj#L565

To be fair, I don't understand why it uses read+string there, read-string looks more fitting in this case where we only want a value.

How to use it in Leiningen?

"def as" on list attempts evaluation (and fails)

I have a cons list and when using "def as" on it, morse attempts to evaluate it which doesn't work because the elements of the list aren't evaluatable (it's a list of many maps, which exceeds the arity of a map).

A simple reproduction is to type into the Eval area: '(1 2 3 4), then focus the result, then try to "def as" it as a.