[Idle-dev] Rework when IDLE opens editor and/or shell windows

[Bruce Sherwood]

If you're speaking solely about running IDLE from a command line I
don't care what the situation is. But it is extremely important to me
that my students (and I) be able to start IDLE in such a way that what
one sees is a blank edit window and no shell window, on all platforms
(Windows, Mac, Linux). If there is some way to continue to be able to
do this, by means of how the script/shortcut is set up, fine. But you
seem to be proposing that this behavior would in the future be
eliminated, which is not acceptable.

Bruce Sherwood

On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 4:08 AM, Tal Einat <taleinat at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'd like to hear some comments on my thinking regarding this.
>
> I started thinking about this thanks to
> http://bugs.python.org/issue6698. Here is my last comment on that
> issue:
>
> After looking through the code and experimenting a bit, I propose the following:
>
> The "editor-on-startup" config option should be removed. Running IDLE
> without arguments should open a shell. If IDLE is asked to open any
> files for editing, it should open just editor windows. IDLE should
> open both a shell window and one or more editor windows only when
> explicitly asked to do so on the command line.
>
> If this is done, the -e option ("open an editor") would tell IDLE to
> open an empty editor window if no files are asked to be opened for
> editing. If no other arguments are given, IDLE will open just an
> editor window (no shell window). The -i option ("open a shell") would
> tell IDLE to open a shell window even if asked to open files for
> editing.
>
> I think this is more obvious and easier to work with. It will also
> make the command line argument processing code simpler. And as a bonus
> we remove a config option :)
>
> Thoughts? Comments? If there is agreement I will work up a patch.
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