[Idle-dev] Idle startup & Config

[Tim Peters]

[Gary Strangman]
> I'm a long-time user of python, but just fired up IDLE for the first time.
> Quite nice, I must say.  I have a couple questions, however, if anyone has
> a moment to help.  (BTW, this is all on a WinNT4 (SP3) machine, using
> the 1.5.2(final) installer, and saying Yes to Tcl/Tk installation).
> ... [and various flaky stuff that looks like Tcl confusion] ...

Try doing

   dir/s tk*.dll
and
   dir/s tcl*.dll

from the root of every disk, and getting rid of any tcl or tk dll that isn't
where the Python installer put them.  Almost every problem with Tcl/Tk is
caused by some other app leaving behind some Tcl/Tk DLL in one of the system
directories (don't *assume* this didn't happen! some apps do it without
telling you), and Tcl/Tk seems incapable of reporting mismatches except via
behaving in weird ways.  BTW, I've never heard of the specific symptoms you
desribed (tcl_wordBreakAfter invalid, & random inappropriate beeping), but
with a bogus DLL in the mix it's simply unpredictable.

Once you get it working, go to

    http://www.python.org/idle/

and pick up IDLE 0.5 -- it has many valuable improvements over the version
that shipped with 1.5.2 (note that IDLE is written in pure Python -- this is
a small download and does *not*, e.g., fiddle with the Tcl/Tk installation).