New release: Crunchy 0.9

[Paddy]

On Jul 10, 12:37 am, André <andre.robe... at gmail.com> wrote:
> Crunchy 0.9 has been released.  It is available athttp://code.google.com/p/crunchy
>
> What is Crunchy?
>
> Crunchy is a an application that transforms html Python tutorials into
> interactive session viewed within a browser.  We are not aware of any
> other application (in any language) similar to Crunchy.   Currently
> Crunchy has only been fully tested with Firefox; we know that some
> browsers simply don't work with it.  Crunchy should work with all
> operating systems - it has been tested fairly extensively on Linux,
> Windows and Mac OS.
>
> What is new in this release?
>
> Crunchy has been rewritten from scratch from the previous version
> (0.8.2), to use a custom plugin architecture.  This makes easier to
> extend and add new functionality.  Rather than list the differences
> with the old release, it is easier to list the essential features of
> this new version.
>
> 1. Crunchy can work best with specially marked-up html tutorials.
> However, it can now work with any html tutorials - including the
> official Python tutorial on the python.org site.  Html pages can be
> loaded locally or remotely from anywhere on the Internet.  Crunchy
> uses a combination of Elementtree and BeautifulSoup to process html
> pages.  Non W3C-compliant pages can be handled, but the visual
> appearance is not guaranteed to reproduce that normally seen using a
> browser.
>
> 2. Crunchy can insert a number of Python interpreters inside a web
> page.  In the default mode, it does that whenever it encounters an
> html <pre> element which is assumed to contain some Python code.
> These interpreters can either share a common environment (e.g. modules
> imported in one of them are known in the other) or be isolated one
> from another.
>
> 3. Crunchy adds automatic css styling to the Python code -  you can
> look at the official Python tutorial using your browser (all Python
> code in blue) and compare with what Crunchy displays to give you a
> good idea.
>
> 4. Instead of inserting an interpreter, Crunchy can insert a code
> editor that can be used to modify the Python code on the page and
> execute it.  The editor can be toggled to become a fairly decent
> syntax aware editor that can save and load files.
>
> 5. Crunchy has a "doctest" feature where the code inside the <pre> is
> taken to be the result
> of an interpreter session and the user has to write the code so as to
> make the interpreter session valid; this is useful in a teaching
> environment. Messages from the Crunchy's doctest are "friendlier" for
> Python beginners than the usual tracebacks.
>
> 6. Crunchy has a small graphics library that can be imported, either
> inside an editor or an interpreter, to produce simple graphics (even
> animations!) inside the browser.
>
> 7. For the user that needs better quality graphics, Crunchy supports
> programs (such as matplotlib) that can create image files; by
> executing the code, the image produced is loaded inside the browser
> window.  In this capacity, Crunchy could be used as a front end for
> libraries such as matplotlib.
>
> 8. Crunchy supports code execution of files as separate processes,
> making it suitable to launch gui based application from the browser
> window.
>
> 9. Crunchy's interpreter has an interactive "help" feature like many
> python-aware IDEs.
>
> 10. Crunchy includes a fairly comprehensive tutorial on its own use,
> as well as a reference for tutorial writers that want to make their
> tutorials "crunchy-friendlier".
>
> 11. As a security feature, crunchy strips all pre-existing javascript
> code from an html page before displaying it inside the browser window.
>
> Bug reports, comments and suggestions are always welcome.
>
> André Roberge, for the Crunchy team.

Fanmail:
  http://paddy3118.blogspot.com/2007/07/ive-been-crunched.html

- Paddy