[Idle-dev] (no subject)

[Mark Fenton]

Hi,

    > Yup, the -m argument was introduced in 2.5.  However, the pythonw vs.
    > python is much older, so try:
    > C:\Python24\pythonw.exe C:\Python24\Lib\idlelib\idle.pyw  -r 
C:\hilo.py
    > In the target line.


    I suspected that the "-m" was at the heart of the problem as I've not 
seen this command line option in any 24 coding before...don't know if this 
is true but the program seems to launch much faster without the DOS window. 
But yes that definitely works! No black window haunting anymore! ;)

    > The color is changeable by changing Idle
    > config...

    I'll look into this.


    >  I think I detect in you the hope that doing a GUI should not be
    > hard; you should be able to nickel and dime your way into it.  I
    > understand the sentiment.  I have for some time had the sneaky
    > suspicion that there is something small inside these GUI monsters
    > crying to get out, but I've felt that way since 1980, and I've
    > never read anything that makes me think,
    >      "Ahh, _that_ is how you do it simply and clearly."
    > So, perhaps I won't ever see that simplicity.  We certainly don't
    > reward simplicity in the normal software business anywhere so much
    > as we should.  Most buy-in-a-box software is evaluated by comparing
    > feature lists, rewarding complicated over simple.  For that matter
    > gcc is no paragon of simplicity.  But Python is simple in the sense
    > I mean, and Google is simple in the "using it" sense as well, so
    > we can guess that the market does not completely punish simplicity.

    When I first started coding for GUI's/Widgets I imagined that anything 
could be done and all of it on the one GUI or Widget, but boy was I in for a 
shock. My naivety was quickly shattered when I tried to implement a game 
like hilo.py to run on the Python "Listbox Widget" type of GUI (inputing on 
a scrolling interface). The Listbox Widget for a start doesn't support a 
program running on it's scrolling interface with continual input from the 
user neither does "The Entry Widget", "The Canvas Widget" or the "The Text 
Widget" because what I'm after is the twin fuctionality of: (1) a scrolling 
interface (2) continuing input from the user onto that same GUI interface 
itself i.e., input from the user then an answer from the running program 
such as the simple hilo.py example. This type of example cannot be run on 
any of the above. "Easygui", "Anygui", "WxPython", "PyGtk", "PyQt", 
"PythonCard" ad infinitum a lot of hair pulling and gnashing of teeth 
occured as I've tried them all over at least a six month period and NONE had 
the twin functionality of the Python IDLE that was so needed; conseqeuntly I 
kept on coming back to where I had started from in the first place...IDLE. 
The coding for the most part on all these GUIs and Widgets was in some cases 
easy enough and the coding part itself was not the real problem which was 
and is those dual capabilities that I'm searching for and this was and is 
only to be found in the Python IDLE itself  (if I'm wrong about this I would 
absolutely love to know about it). Along the way I've found out there are 
many different types of GUIs and Widgets catering for just about everyone's 
taste depending on what their specific long term goals are.

    > I'll mention that there exists an easy to use module for Python that
    > creates navigable 3D animations, and simple GUI's, with remarkably
    > little effort. See vpython.org; upon installation there are lots of
    > example programs you can run (most easily from IDLE).

    I have little hair remaining and am left in quite a gummy state now but 
after I recover will try VPython at the soonest opportunity:)

Regards,
Mark