[New-bugs-announce] [issue27170] IDLE: remove Toggle Auto Coloring or add to edit menu & doc

[Terry J. Reedy]

New submission from Terry J. Reedy:

On Stackoverflow, person asked why syntax coloring sometimes stopped working, seemingly at random.  https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37511276/how-to-make-python-idle-editor-to-change-line-colors-according-to-the-color-map

The OP finally traced the problem to hitting ctrl-/ because of habit from using PyCharm, which bind ^/ to something else.  In IDLE, cntrl-/ is bound to <<toggle-auto-coloring>>, but that is not easy to discover.  (If I ever halfway knew about it, I had forgotten.)  There is no menu entry and, I am sure, no mention in the doc. There is only the hard-to-search list in the Keys tab of the configuration dialog.  T think that this feature should either be visible on the menu and documented and enhanced, or deleted.

I am currently inclined to delete it as I cannot see hardly any use, and doubt that is sees real use, especially by beginners. It only affects the current window.  It only affects future keystrokes (and pasted text), leaving current colorization as is.  There is no indication that coloring is off until one types something that should be colored, and many will not know all the fine details.  (This is why the SO OP had trouble pinning down the trigger.)  If the toggle is kept, there should be an indication added to the status bar.

Searching all IDLE issues for 'toggle' returned 24 hits, none for color.  I should check hg annotate for the author of the code and issue #, if not part of the original submission.

----------
components: 2to3 (2.x to 3.x conversion tool)
messages: 266773
nosy: terry.reedy
priority: normal
severity: normal
stage: test needed
status: open
title: IDLE: remove Toggle Auto Coloring or add to edit menu & doc
type: behavior
versions: Python 3.6

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue27170>
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