WxPython's Py Suite (PyCrust, etc.) updated with new "magic" features and new notebook interface shell, PySlices

[David Mashburn]

WxPython's Py Suite (PyCrust, etc.) updated with new "magic" features and new notebook interface shell, PySlices.

WxPython has, for a long time, included PyCrust, one of the most popular
Python shells.  PyCrust has found uses in a number of projects, including
Stani's Python Editor and some projects at Enthought.  PyCrust, part of the
larger "Py suite" of tools, had been dormant for some time now, but it is
now under a new maintainer and has recently been updated!  Py Suite 0.9.8.3
can be found in the wxPython 2.9 svn branch (import path is wx.py),
on a Google code page (http://code.google.com/p/wxpysuite/)
and in PyPI (package name is wx_py).
Py Suite 0.9.8.3 requires wxPython 2.8 or later.
A summary of the major changes follows:

The biggest change is certainly the inclusion of a new notebook interface
version of PyCrust called "PySlices" into the Py suite!  It features
multi-line execution in re-runnable code blocks called "slices" and the
ability to save to a simple .pyslices format that when converted to .py
is still valid python code!  PySlices is a great lightweight alternative
to the excellent SAGE and Reinteract projects.

Both PyCrust and PySlices now include some ipython style "magic" features:

Unix-style path functions:
    "cd", "ls", and "pwd" all work as expected
Space based function calls:
    "f 1" will automatically convert to "f(1)"
"?" character to call help:
    "?dir" is equivalent to "help(dir)"
"!" character to call operating system shell commands:
    "!foobar" is automatically converted to "commands.getoutput('foobar')"

There is also a highly experimental shell (not included in the wxPython svn
version) called SymPySlices that uses sympy for for automatic symbol
creation, and allows for the use of unicode charcters directly in python.
Mathematical operators (including some infix operators via ast parsing) are
supported.  SymPySlices additionally requires Python 2.6 or later and sympy.
This is still very experimental, so please let me know if you have
questions, problems, or ideas (david.n.mashburn at gmail.com)!

You can read more about these projects on the google code page:
    http://code.google.com/p/wxpysuite/
at the PyPI page:
    http://pypi.python.org/pypi/wx_py/0.9.8.3
and in the original wxTrac ticket:    
    http://trac.wxwidgets.org/ticket/10959
Feel free to email me with questions, bugs, and feature requests!

<P><A HREF="http://code.google.com/p/wxpysuite/">Py Suite 0.9.8.3</A> - WxPython's Py Suite (PyCrust, etc.) updated with new "magic" features and new notebook interface shell, PySlices.   (06-April-2010)