Ugh! is it really that hard to print_r($node) in your theme during development when you're looking for a var?
I personally think the print_r(object structure) is much easier to deal with than having to get_defined_vars, which is normally a big interesting mess.
Print_r is a fine way to see what variables are *available*. How to assign or create new variables and make that data available to the theme is an entirely separate and more complicated issue. And that involves knowing what is literally available from drupal to assign. It often leads to having to code dive into someone elses module to figure out how to get the information you need to print out. A UI could help the themer have access to more data from other parts of Drupal and format it the way they want. I think saying that print_r solves the problem is oversimplifying the issue. We should think about this some more. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Don't get soaked. Take a quick peak at the forecast with the Yahoo! Search weather shortcut. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/#loc_weather