Python and IDEs [was Re: Python 3 is killing Python]

[Gregory Ewing]

Chris Angelico wrote:
> The "easier target for the mouse" argument is valuable ONLY
> when you use the mouse to access the menu bar. If you use the keyboard
> (and take advantage of mnemonic letters), it's much more useful to
> have the menu bar attached to its window.

Seems to me that if you use the keyboard for everything,
it doesn't matter where the menu bar is. Unless you're
talking about the way you can use the keyboard to make
menus drop down in Windows... but that's not the way
Mac menu shortcuts work. The menu doesn't visually drop
down when you invoke a Mac menu command with the keyboard.

> In the rare case of an app
> that runs without any windows, incidentally, how do you tell the
> system that you want that app's menu bar instead of (say) Finder,
> which comes up when you click on the desktop?

In classic MacOS, there was a menu of running applications
in the top right corner. In MacOSX, you click on the app's
icon in the dock.

Also, while completely windowless applications might be
rare, it's not rare for an app to have some commands that
pertain to the app itself, and not to any particular
window, e.g. "New". It's more logical for those to appear
in a user interface element that's not tied to a window.

-- 
Greg