IDLE Default Working Directory

[Christman, Roger Graydon]

On 13 Nov 2018, at 09:51, Bev in TX <countryone77 at gmail.com> wrote:
________________________________
> On Nov 12, 2018, at 5:50 PM, Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:
>
> For me, open (command-O) opens 'Documents'.  I presume it should be easy enough to move into a 'py' subfolder.

The whole point is for Idle -> File -> Open (or command-O) to automatically open to a specific folder.

Bev in TX


Thank you, Bev in TX for clarifying my question.  That is indeed what I seek.   My course has proved cumbersome every time a student created a new program in class, since they would have to change folders.    And when

I got to working with data files, I ended up with a little punt to avoid having to specify a complete path name to get to a workable directory.


My students are not programmers.  I have English majors, Education majors, and students in their first year at a University.  I won't say they are completely computer-illiterate, they can use a browser well enough.   But I expect none of them to have ever seen the command line, so I really don't want to go that route.


As far as activating IDLE on this Windows 10 system,

I go down to the search bar at the bottom left, type 'IDLE', and then up comes a list of various installations

we have lying around, including 2.7, 3.4, and 3.6 versions.   I have them just select the 3.6 version from the list to launch IDLE.    I don't consider that quite the same as using a 'shortcut', since we are not clicking on any icon on the desktop.


I am not on the campus-wide labs right now, so I cannot really say much further -- and I haven't tried right-clicking on those items to see if configuration options show up, to talk to the %AppData% path, etc.


The Penn State computer labs are networked -- each computer has a C: drive, which I presume might be local to each machine -- but in any case, I think it is read-only

to the students.  And since they could easily sit down at a different machine on any day, I wouldn't want to rely on any configuration file or anything on the C drive anyway.


There is a networked U: drive (for users) that is campus wide, which is useful.  There is also a virtual V: drive, which simply maps to each individual's folder set aside for them on the U: drive.   That place would be ideal for my purposes as a place to save code and data files.


But the default directory is somewhere else.   I would

have to get back on campus before I can quote exactly,

but wherever it is a readonly file space that's not the

Desktop or My Documents, or who knows what.

I'd preferably like to reset the default to the V: drive

(or even create a Python folder on that virtual V: drive).


And the real challenge is to come up with the simplest

solution that I can explain or show to first-time programming students in under a minute, which therefore does not involve the command-line interface.

I don't want to scare half the students away in the very first class, just trying to configure their development environment.


If that's impossible, then I guess I'll have to fire a note off to the  university tech support requesting them to play with that "Start In" option through %AppData%, or whatever it was.


Roger Christman

Pennsylvania State University