Issue: Development Ideas for the History Panel

Branch: feature/history-panel

Summary of Original Ideas (for posterity)

1. Action Tracking

   • Each action is represented as a line, allowing replaying the workflow from the start.
   • Actions are objects containing:
     • A description (displayed in the UI).
     • Method identifier (class name, method name) and associated arguments:
       • Dataset-type parameters.
       • Signal/image arguments replaced with local identifiers (e.g., s003).
     • An attribute with the DataLab workspace state:
       • Determines if the action can be executed.
       • Validates the number of signals/images and data array dimensions.
     • Serialization/deserialization methods for the action object.
     • A method to execute the action.

2. History Panel Management

   • Contains multiple lists of actions:
     • A new list is created each time the workspace is cleared.
     • Each list may have a default title based on the timestamp.
   • Handles backward compatibility:
     • Verifies action references upon initialization.
     • Removes incompatible actions, optionally warning the user.
     • Future support for backward compatibility by updating method/class names.

3. Widget Capabilities

   • Visualize the action tree: branches correspond to action lists.
   • Remove action lists or specific actions.
   • Display workspace state for each action:
     • Left: table of signals with data sizes.
     • Right: table of images with dimensions.
   • Highlight executable actions (with icons).
   • Execute actions or sequences from a compatible workspace state:
     • Replay actions with stored parameters or user-modified ones.
     • Support interactive execution (dialogs open with saved parameters).
     • Enable non-interactive execution (reuse parameters without dialogs).

4. Advanced Features

   • Button to generate macros from all or part of the history.

Suggested Priority

• Critical:

  • Implement action serialization/deserialization and execution.
  • Add workspace state validation for actions.

• Medium:

  • Backward compatibility handling.
  • Widget enhancements for visualization and usability.

• Optional:

  • Non-interactive execution.
  • Macro generation.

Moving Forward: Next Steps

The question is:

1. Is it really an interesting feature?
2. Or would it be more interesting to implement something like a sequencer? (that would be quite close to the feature shown in the video, except that recording actions would have to be triggered manually by the user)

Another complementary feature could be to generate code (in a macro) from a sequence of actions.