[Idle-dev] open idle edit window only?

[Paul Guse]

Simplicity is definitely a good way to go.
Looking at the options in Option->Configure idle.. it seems to me that there 
are a couple of options that would be handy to be able to set in the 
commandline.
Fonts/Highlighting/Keys could all be ignored as this is pretty specific to 
each user, but I would make use of the ability to change (in the general 
tab) the Startup Preference, Autosave pref, and possible window size 
(although less likely).
I'm using python as an embedded scripting language and having these options 
would really allow me to tailor idle to my needs. Writing to the config 
files might not be an option if the user does not have permission to do so. 
I could change the config upon installation, but messing with the user's 
settings is always a bit suspect.
Definitely the startup pref is the most importan, I believe.
Paul



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tal Einat" <taleinat at gmail.com>
To: "Douglas S. Blank" <dblank at brynmawr.edu>
Cc: "Paul Guse" <paul at mustagh.com>; <idle-dev at python.org>
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2007 4:49 PM
Subject: Re: [Idle-dev] open idle edit window only?


> On 7/20/07, Douglas S. Blank <dblank at brynmawr.edu> wrote:
>> On Fri, July 20, 2007 1:48 pm, Paul Guse said:
>> > Is there a way to open just the edit window (without the run window) 
>> > from
>> > the commandline?
>> > I can go into the idle configuration and change the "At Startup" option 
>> > to
>> > "Open Edit Window" and this does what I'm looking for, but I need to be
>> > able to do this without manually going into idle and changing it.
>> > I need to be able to control this through the commandline (or 
>> > equivalent)
>> > without making the user set up the options manually.
>>
>> I don't know how to do what you ask, but I will second the motion that
>> this is an annoyance. It seems that there should be a third option that
>> would open the edit window, given a file to edit, or open the interpreter
>> otherwise. Of course, this is moot if we had the ability to have a single
>> window that was split with editor and interpreter.
>
> Your "third option" would seem to be the obvious default behavior, IMO.
>
> I've always wondered at the editor/shell window logic in IDLE. I would
> expect IDLE to open a shell window if called without arguments, or an
> editor window if called with one or more arguments. A flag to
> specifically also open a shell window would suffice to allow opening a
> shell window alongside editor window(s). But the config option for
> choosing what should be opened initially, which cannot be overridden
> from the command line, seems silly. (Especially since opening a
> shell/editor window is a very simple action.)
>
> I think we should remove this config option from IDLE and make the
> command line options simpler and more intuitive/standard. I feel this
> would go well with IDLE's philosophy of being as simple as possible,
> avoiding clutter as much as possible. Just as we avoid excessive GUI
> elements, we should avoid excessive configuration options.
>
> Any feedback on this would be welcome!
>
> - Tal
>