Improving retaining path identifier in Diff view
- Dominant language
- Dart
- Stars
- 1.7k
- Forks
- 404
- Avg merge
- 6d 17h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 18
Description
Retaining paths are currently identified by the last few nodes as shown in the screenshot below. The identifiers often include classes internal to Dart and Flutter, which the app developer is likely to be unfamiliar with. Thus, it's unclear the information in such identifiers actually providing any value to the majority of users.

It might not hurt to identify different retaining paths simply by number such as Path 1, Path 2, Path 3, etc. The detailed path information is available on the right hand side of the table once the user selects one of them. Thoughts?
Contributor guide
Research direction
Start in the DevTools Diff view and inspect how retaining-path identifiers are produced and displayed in the table. Compare the table selection behavior with the detailed path information shown on the right. Done means distinct paths have clear identifiers while selecting one still exposes its detailed path.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- dart
- Domain
- devtools
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Newbie friendliness
- 25/100