[Pythonmac-SIG] Mac IDLE Fonts? (-or- I guess I need glasses.)

Russell E. Owen rowen at cesmail.net
Thu Jul 17 22:06:03 CEST 2008


In article <rowen-97F38B.09493317072008 at news.gmane.org>,
 "Russell E. Owen" <rowen at cesmail.net> wrote:

> In article 
> <a0d7bcd40807050649u1e6df01erda46c5e8d87521f0 at mail.gmail.com>,
>  Nate <afraud at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > I've been trying to increase the font size inside IDLE. The documentation
> > refers to an "Options menu" that seems to be eluding me in the Mac flavor of
> > IDLE.  Could someone please help me?
> 
> When I run IDLE it has Preferences... under the IDLE menu. That's the 
> standard location and name for Mac prefs. The Fonts/Tabs panel has what 
> you're looking for.

That said, it doesn't actually seem to work for me (I should have tried 
it before posting). I can set the font size, but I can't seem to make it 
stick. Clicking OK or Apply after making the change has no obvious 
effect; in fact OK doesn't even close the Preferences dialog box, which 
is not a good sign. That's with IDLE 2.5.2 on MacOS X 10.4.11.

I also looked at ~/Library/Preferences/idle.plist (the only obvious 
prefs file I could find) but it only had a few entries and none were 
relevant to the font.

Finally, I found the directory ~/.idlerc/ but none of the files in there 
look relevant.

Maybe somebody knows where the prefs are stored or how to get them to 
work. I'm afraid I don't use IDLE myself.

Another option is to use a normal text editor* You lose some 
interactivity but the powerful editing features may compensate by 
increasing productivity in other ways.

Other IDEs that work on Mac include Eclipse (free but cluttered) and 
WingIDE (powerful but X11-based).

-- Russell

*I don't want to start an editor war, but commonly used options include:
- TextWrangler: free, mature, robust, but clumsy find/replace
- TextMate: powerful but has char-at-a-time undo
- SubEthaEdit: nice but regex find is somewhat broken and no rectangular 
selection
- Smultron: free, less powerful than TextWrangler but better find/replace
- AquaEmacs: great for power users who aren't afraid of key stroke 
combinations

I personally use Pepper, but it's no longer supported. I'm still looking 
for a modern replacement that I like as well.



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