[Idle-dev] /me waves

[Terry Reedy]

On 3/22/2013 4:35 PM, Bruce Sherwood wrote:

> On the Mac, clicking on the Preferences
> menu option (for configuring IDLE) causes a crash,

Fixed last October, http://bugs.python.org/issue15853

 > but I assume the situation is similar to that on Windows.

I am not sure what you mean. The above issue was mac only.

> Among many improvements, Polo implemented a feature that if there is an
> execution error in a spawned program that creates a window, the shell
> with the error message comes forward of that window so that you see the
> error, with an IDLE preference for invoking this behavior. The shell
> does come in front of the edit window in the case of an execution error,
> but at least in older versions of IDLE if running the program creates a
> new window, and that window covers the shell window, an execution error
> doesn't bring the shell window forward. I couldn't immediately think of
> a way to test this in a newly installed Python 3.3.0, but unless this
> behavior is now the default and therefore there's no need for a
> preference setting, presumably this feature isn't in the currently
> distributed IDLE.

Did G.Polo ever attach a patch to an issue? I do not remember seeing one 
like this..

> Another significant feature of Polo's work that still hasn't made it
> into IDLE is the preference option to permit not having to save the
> program at all, something that makes a surprisingly big difference for
> experimentation.

Programs have to be saved in something the user process can read. The 
issue is making this automatic if one wishes. There is already an option 
to autosave after saving a file once. I use a 'tem.py' file in my 
miscellaneous python scripts directory. Since I use it often, it is 
usually near the top of the 'Recent files' list, making it almost as 
easy to open as a new file. So I never see anything about saving unless 
I decide to SaveAs. With that trick, I effectively have the nosave edit, 
run, view output cycle already. I agree, it is very nice.

gpolo is nosy on 59 closed issues, 31 open issues. I did not see any 
about running without explicit saving.

> Because I considered these improvements and various bug fixes carried
> out by Polo to be so important, yet there seemed to be no way to get
> IDLE updated, starting in 2009 ...

I think 2009 is about when Kurt Kaiser tapered off his IDLE work. 30 
patches were pushed from last October to January. IDLE work is currently 
frozen waiting for PEP434 to be accepted. If and when it is, I will 
start committing and pushing more patches.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy