[Idle-dev] idle -h etc

[Hernan Martinez Foffani]

Please, consider all my RFEs with a broad perspective.
The absence of these neither annoys nor bothers me.  It just
happens to raise a "it would be nice if ..." thinking
sometimes.

>>>> What other capability do you feel is missing?
>> 
>> Just because you've asked, my wish list is:
>> - A config option to set the current working
>>   directory on shell startup.
> 
> It already does this for me.

Ah...  In 2.4 maybe?  Apologize then.  I'm still using 2.3.

>> - That IDLE detects itself running and open
>>   another window instead of another process
>>   when I rightclick on a script (Windows OS).
> 
> As I said in my previous email, that seems hard, especially on
> Windows.  Suggestions will be appreciated.

Yes, I also believe it would be hard.  It may be a bit easier if
IDLE can test the presence of pywin32 and use some Windows primitives
in that case (don't know if that is no-no policy wrt IDLE project.)

>> - Intelligent copy&paste of code snippets from browsers or ascii
>> editors to idle's shell and back magically handling PS1/PS2 and
>> tabs/spaces.  
>
>Would be nice.

Glad to hear that.

>> - copy&paste code snippets from shell to edit windows as docstrings.
> 
> What would this be used for?  Is it worth the effort and complication
> to eliminate typing a couple of triple quotes once in awhile?

My use case is for doctests.   If it can take care of PS1/PS2 while
pasting it would great.  (for instance, idle opens a pop context menu
and offers to choice for "Paste as doctest", "Paste from browser", etc.)

I leave to you the task of measuring the "effort worthness". ;-)

>> - the concept of a project integrated in IDLE
> 
> This could happen if people on the list could get together on a
> (KISS :-) design.

For me a project is just a list of files and directories and a gadget
that detects renames, moves and deletes on such list.  The list
can be loaded, modified in an IDLE session and saved for later use.

>> - subversion and/or generic SCM plugin capabilities.
> 
> I looked at this briefly.  The tools are so complex that integrating
> anything more than the simplest functions (update, checkin) would
> appear to be a big job and would clutter IDLE.  You would probably
> still have to use the tool outside IDLE for branching and merging.
> Have you tried TortiseCVS?  It seems to run well alongside IDLE.  It
> has a pretty elaborate GUI in order to cover everything, and it's
> nicely integrated with Windows Explorer.

Sure.  Actually I'm using TortoiseSVN every day.  And even sometimes
I fallback to Subversion's CLI for some operations (merge being one
of them).
We develop with Visual Studio (we are a .NET company) and we've got 
a Subversion plugin for it.  The plugin's advantage over other
clients is that it knows which files belongs to the project.
Committing then is a bit safer because it's less likely that you
forget files or include unrelated ones.  
But the plugin still has problems.  It has to track renames, moves,
deletes and additions and VS's event API doesn't alert subscriptors
on every case.  The result is that I have to use external tools
every now and then (TortoiseSVN, and the official Subversion's CLI)

In summary, I think it would be cool to have that integregated
but only if the design and implementation consider all the corner
cases.  Otherwise I rather keep using external tools.  

BTW, thanks for asking, Kurt.

Regards,
-H.