How do you configure IDLE on a Mac, seeing as there's no Configure Option...

Steve Holden steve at holdenweb.com
Mon Jan 4 11:48:18 EST 2010


Alf P. Steinbach wrote:
> * Mensanator:
>> ...because there's no [Options] menu on the shell window?
>>
>> Or at least give me a clue to how to use Courier New font?
>>
>> For some inscrutable reason, depite the plethora of formatting tools,
>> someone decided that proportional spaced fonts ought to be the
>> default for IDLE.

Yeah, that was a smart move, wasn't it?
> 
> Why not just use the Python interpreter, a reasonable programmer's
> editor and, if you need it, some debugger.
> 
> The source code level debugging in IDLE is nothing to write home about.
> 
I quite agree.

> In Windows XP it is just silly: it marks the current line by ordinary
> text selection, which (depending on your config, but I think this is
> default) is invisible when you're looking at the debugger window for
> single stepping. You can see it by switching back to the source code
> window but that's annoying, not very practical. Invisible highlighting
> of the current line, he he...
> 
I remember being extremely surprised to read that a Python developer I
greatly admire uses IDLE as his main development interface. Frankly I
have always found IDLE extremely non-intuitive, and I am constantly
frustrated at having to explain about its shortcomings and oddities to
newcomers in my "Introduction to Python" classes.

Who actually maintains IDLE nowadays?

regards
 Steve
-- 
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