[Tutor] Problem with 2.4's IDLE

[Danny Yoo]

On Tue, 30 Nov 2004, Dick Moores wrote:

> I installed 2.4 today and find that when using its IDLE, File|Open opens
> to \Documents and Settings\Dick, a long ways from \Python24. Actually,
> I'd prefer \Python24\MyScripts. Same for File|Save. Is there a way to
> control this behavior?


Hi Dick,


Yes, I believe so.  The directory that you are finding yourself in,
'\Documents and Settings\Dick', is considered your personal "HOME"
directory, and I suspect IDLE is sending you there initially.  You may
want to first change the current working directory to \Python24\MyScripts
instead.


I did some code diving.  Here's a sort of running dialog I'm having with
myself to see if we can figure this out.


In idlelib/IOBinding.py, around line 515, there's code that handles the
file open dialog box:

###
    def askopenfile(self):
        dir, base = self.defaultfilename("open")
        if not self.opendialog:
            self.opendialog = tkFileDialog.Open(master=self.text,
                                                filetypes=self.filetypes)
        return self.opendialog.show(initialdir=dir, initialfile=base)
###

Ok, that looks very promising.  The initial directory is defined by some
method called "defaultfilename".  Let's see what that looks like.


### idlelib/IOBinding.py, line 522
    def defaultfilename(self, mode="open"):
        if self.filename:
            return os.path.split(self.filename)
        elif self.dirname:
            return self.dirname, ""
        else:
            try:
                pwd = os.getcwd()     ## <-- (dyoo: This looks like it!)
            except os.error:
                pwd = ""
            return pwd, ""
###


Without looking at this more closely, this appears to confirm our
suspicions.  If no file has been opened yet, IDLE uses the current working
directory as its initial file-opening default.

If we can somehow change the current working directory that IDLE uses,
then we're all set.  Unfortunately, I don't know how things work on
Windows, nor how it sets the current working directory of a double-clicked
application.

If you feel really kludgy, you modify that line in the defaultfilename()
function so that, instead of it doing:

                pwd = os.getcwd()

it can be munged to:

                pwd = '/Python24/MyScripts'


A better approach, of course, would be to get the IDLE folks to add an
option for changing the default file opening location.  *grin*

Try sending them a patch request for a configurable default file-open
directory.  If it's not in there already, it actually doesn't seem like a
hard thing to implement.


Good luck to you!