[issue33642] IDLE: Use variable number of lines in CodeContext

[Cheryl Sabella]

Cheryl Sabella <cheryl.sabella at gmail.com> added the comment:

I know we usually don't change defaults, but I had tested this one and I think it works.  After I changed it to 15 lines in master, I opened the installed version of IDLE 2.7.  Although it showed 15 fixed lines, it made sense since that was the number of lines in the 3.8 version.

I figured a typical user would be using whichever version of IDLE comes with their current Python.  So, at some point the OS would upgrade it and they would be moving from a version with fixed lines to a version with variable lines (for Python 3).  If they had previously changed their settings, it would still use whatever they had changed it to as the limit, but now the context area would grow and shrink (so they would know the change exists).  If they hadn't customized their settings, it would just change from 3 to 15.

If the user switches between two versions (like when I tested with 2.7), then I think seeing the changes almost makes more sense to them.  They can see it at 15 in the new version and watch it grow and shrink.  Then it the 2.7 version, it looks the same, but without the expansion/contraction.  It's a demonstration of what makes the variable sizing nice to have.  Although it may lead to someone wanting it in 2.7.  :-)

Anyway, that was my thinking process.  When you try it out, you may not agree, but it made sense to me when I saw what was happening.

Note: one time this didn't quite work was when I set the line limit to 90.  3.8 worked great -- just like it had with 15 (that is, it never ate the whole editor window).  But, under 2.7, it ate the whole window and without the `reload` in codecontext, changing the config didn't help until I restarted IDLE.

----------

_______________________________________
Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue33642>
_______________________________________