[Pythonmac-SIG] IDE that doesn't look awful?

[Christopher Barker]

Brendan Simons wrote:
> I like textwrangler.

So do I, for a lot of things, but one thing that really bugs me is that 
it simply does not do code indentation properly. In fact, IIRC, there 
was a thread about this quite some years ago, in which someone (was it 
you, Joe?) posted a note back from BareBones, essentially saying: "you 
shouldn't want to do that, so we'll never support it). Which brings up a 
core issue with TextWrangler -- it's closed source, and not really 
extensible, so we in the Python community CAN NOT make a good python 
mode, even if we want to. That's like "buying a car with the hood welded 
shut", as they say.

In fact, I don't think I put this on my list earlier, but one of things 
I like about Peppy is that it is the only editor I've tried, other than 
Emacs, that does code indentation properly. Here is what I mean by properly:


The <tab> key gets mapped to an "indent this line" method, rather than a 
tab character (or X spaces). The <delete> key gets mapped to a 
"de-indent this line" method, when the cursor is at the beginning of the 
line. Exactly what those methods do should be language (and maybe 
user-preference) dependent. For Python, they should be:

"indent this line":
   - indenting is four spaces, always. not tabs, ever.
   - anywhere on the line, try to indent the code "properly"
     -match the previous line
     - if the previous line starts a block (:), indent one more level.
     - if the current line continues the previous line (unclosed 
parentheses), indent to match the open paren in the line above.

"de-indent this line":
   - if in the indent space in the beginning of a line, remove one level 
of indentation.
   - if in the "extra" whitespace of a continuation line, remove one space.


I suppose I should post this somewhere like the pyXides list....

and yes, Joe, It would be nice to write up a review of your evaluations 
from a Mac perspective.

Joe Strout wrote:
> FYI, I've been most impressed so far with Editra.

I'll need to take a look again and see why I rejected it in favor of 
Peppy -- I honestly don't remember.

> It's a wxPython app and the author is open to contributions, so I will 
> probably roll up my sleeves and see what I can do to help it along.

Add an interface to winPDB!

Ed Leafe wrote:
>     I guess I should put in a plug for the Dabo Editor.

I've got to ask: With the dozen or so wxPython-based editors out there 
-- why not use and improve one of them, rather than write your own?

What does Dabo Editor's architecture provide that none of the others do?



-Chris






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Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
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