Yesterday Justin blog'ged about the new features that are included in the new testing tool on RegexLib.com:
http://weblogs.asp.net/justin_rogers/archive/2004/09/04/225692.aspx
...but I just wanted to expand on that a little. In that article Justin mentioned the new "options" panel and alluded to the fact that we'll be adding all future functionality through that widget. Today I just wanted to highlight some of the functionality that I've added to it for this initial release.
Firstly, you can see that you can choose whether you are tesing against the .NET engine or against client-side engines (VBScript or Javascript). Depending on which option you choose you will see different mode modifier options on the left hand side. The mode modifiers in the above image reflect the modifiers for the .NET engine. The mode modifier settings that you choose will be persisted between sessions; this means that, if you configure the settings to use: ExplicitCapture and IgnoreCase then, next time you use the tool, those settings will be pre-selected for you.
The widget can be minimized by toggling the state with the arrow in the top right hand corner of the panel. Again, the state of the panel will be persisted so, if you minimize it, it will be minimized when you re-visit. It's easier to minimize the panel once you have made your initial configuration settings so that you have more space to play with to view matches.
Clicking on the text of any of the radio choices displays help text about that setting. In the future many more Help features will be added into the panel - most likely in the form of "flyouts" and, for each of them the text will be displayed in the center area of the panel.
I have to thank Justin Rogers and Thomas 'Aylar' Johansen for their help in getting this new testing tool to its current state. It was Justin's idea to use the panel as an extensible help provider and configuration widget and Thomas used his design skills to bring the panel to life.
The testing tool