[Idle-dev] Thank you for IDLE! :-)

[Anderson, Errol]

Hi

While I acknowledge there are nice features in IDLE, there are
significant omissions that I would like to see added before I switch to
using it.  These include:

1. No word-wrap provision.  While Python "purists" might be happy to
limit code to 80-character width, I see this as an unnecessary
restriction and like the free-form coding that is possible with
word-wrap.

2. Indent variation.  The default appears to be 8 characters.  I like to
use two characters but it seems impossible to change this globally in
any way that is reliable.  If I set the indent to 2 spaces in "Options"
"Configure Idle", the default value in "Format" "New Indent Width" shows
4, even though the code is using 8 !!!.   The editor also gets very
confused between spaces and tabs, so that if the indent is changed, IDLE
then treats the indent of that line as spaces, not tabs.

3. There is no provision to show hidden characters (e.g. tabs, spaces,
line-feeds).  If these are shown, it makes many coding errors much
easier to find.

4. No provision for line numbers.

5. The very nice feature where the current procedure and loop is shown
at the top of the page is related to the position of the top of the
screen, not the cursor position.  Come on, surely it can't be too hard
to link this to cursor position.


Just a few improvements that would move the editor into the exceptional
class, but without them, it is very frustrating.

Cheers

Errol Anderson


-----Original Message-----
From: idle-dev-bounces at python.org [mailto:idle-dev-bounces at python.org]
On Behalf Of Joel Hedlund
Sent: Saturday, 28 January 2006 7:37 a.m.
To: idle-dev at python.org
Subject: [Idle-dev] Thank you for IDLE! :-)

Hello!

I want to express my gratitude to the people behind IDLE, the best
Python IDE I've seen yet.

Once every third month or so I spend a day or so looking for a Python
editor that surpasses IDLE. I've been doing this for 2 years, but
nothing else even comes close in reliability, usability and
functionality.

IDLE is still king of the hill.

Thanks a million!
/Joel Hedlund
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