[Idle-dev] open idle edit window only?

[Tal Einat]

On 7/21/07, Paul Guse <paul at mustagh.com> wrote:
> 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

That seems like a bit much for my taste... Though I can see this being
useful when using IDLE as an interface for something, where you may
want to avoid bugging users with saving files all of the time.

This is a step in the direction of IDLE as a configurable shell
environment, usable as a generic front-end, which would require it to
be somewhat configurable. I've heard several people thinking in such
directions lately, but I'm afraid there isn't enough development force
behind IDLE to bring it to that point. As I see it, IPython is a
better candidate for such uses, if only because its development is
drastically more active. Though in its current state, its text-only
interface is certainly a major drawback for common users compared to
IDLE.


As for a solution: You could set these in the user configuration in
his .idlerc directory, instead of the global config. Any user should
have write access to this directory. See the beginning of
Lib\idlelib\config-main.def for details.

- Tal