bug: every time i highlight first, then click from "static" to "eval", and then it puts in `` i break out in hives

[keeganpoppen]

Describe the bug

every time it randomly fills in a template string i have to delete, or i run a 5 minute flow only for the static string "results.e.blah" instead of eval'ing, somewhere out there a kitten dies. thus this is clearly the highest possible severity. there are a million ways of fixing this-- my preference would be to just not default to static, but i'd understand if you disagree-- but at the very least if you didn't rob me of focus in the input field, and then kick me while i'm down with a "([])" or a "``" or a "${thing you pasted because you thought it was eval mode}"... shudder. i would genuinely become 100% more productive at my job if you changed this in some way. yes, i do spend that much time using this product. probably more time than a fair few of you guys working on it for the simple fact that to build the thing it is a fact of life that you have to do things exogenous to the product, whereas i do not-- the entire system i have been working on continuously for months on end is indistinguishable from the windmill substrate it is built on.

To reproduce

create a code script that takes in an argument. click in the shiny box where you want to type results.a first, instead of clicking on the tiny "no i don't want to just type in a measly literal value" button. bonus points if you typed the full thing out before you realized your mistake, and prepare yourself for the horrors of ${thing you typed} or "``thing you typed" or "([])" (thing no one has ever, ever typed).

Expected behavior

here are some options:

• default to eval, and if the expression doesn't eval when the user leaves focus, flip it to static or draw a red box around it
• if someone has typed in a valid expression before switching over to eval mode, just leave it; hell, even if they typed anything at all. if you meant to type a string and you switched to eval, that's on you
• when the user clicks back in on the ([]) monstrosity, just auto-highlight all the text so i can press backspace
• aren't most of the things people type into the box valid expressions anyway, other than, like, strings? just make the invalid ones strings!
• literally do not allow me to click to switch to any other view until i reconcile the obvious conflict between my input and the result. throw up alert boxes with marquee tags in them. geocities 2024 edition.

Screenshots

No response

Browser information

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Application version

No response

Additional Context

i'm sorry for the effusiveness... i have many, many more thoughts but i will spare you for now and take my ball and go home. much, much <3 <3 <3.

[rubenfiszel]

Thanks for the feedback.

I agree, static vs eval for strings, there are drawbacks to both. You are a poweruser and static being default is annoying for you. However, for a beginner of Windmill, eval being the default would be confusing. We believe that the biggest blocker for making Windmill more popular is the steep learning curve at the beginning. One possible solution is to make that default configurable and find a way to make that setting button visible to the user without cluttering the UI too much.