UX improvements to expression editor

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1

I think several things should be done to improve user experience:

  1. Display the @ prefix used on variables / table records / … : Not having it displayed is especially annoying when copy-pasting an expression since these must be reinserted by hand. This is also an unintuitive and non-standard practice ; any syntax highlighter I know does one thing 99% of the time: they format the text. They almost never edit/alter it (if we exclude whitespaces / indenting).
  2. Add a copy-paste button somewhere: I regularly need to copy-paste an expression. This currently requires to display the expression editor (or its preview) and to manually select the text. It would be much handier to have a simple copy-paste button displayed next to Enabled state / trigger expressions that would not require any manual selection or opening the expression editor/preview.
  3. Allow to search @ values without forcing the user to type everything: Currently, if I want to look for @``Users.John Doe.Email, I cannot simply type john for example. I have to type @users``.``john. This is especially annoying with long prefixes like @Machine Activity Field, @Last Machine Output, @Table record.
2

As a short addition: In the Trigger Panel, copying the expression also kopies the @ character. In the enabled state e.g. it does not…

3

Hi @fti, sorry for the slow reply, and thanks for laying these out. Searching without typing the full path (your #3) is one we’re looking at. The @ prefix on copy-paste (#1) and a copy button (#2) are noted. We’re also weighing how much to put into the current expression editor versus a bigger rework, so I don’t have timing yet. I’ll update here as that gets clearer.