[Idle-dev] A plan to fix IDLE while waiting for PEP434

[Roger Serwy]

Hi Everyone,

There are 107 open issues against IDLE presently in the bug tracker. 
Here is a list of 31 issues that deal with actual bugs in IDLE. These 
are not enhancements, new features, user-interface annoyances, or 
anything requiring a change to how the user interacts with IDLE (with 
the arguable exceptions of 14105 and 14146). Let's fix these issues 
while we wait on PEP434.

We still need a unit test framework for IDLE as listed in 15392. Full 
unit testing would require a significant refactoring of parts of IDLE. I 
am willing to accept extensive manual testing for an issue as sufficient 
reason to apply a patch, but if a very simple test can be written then 
let's write it with the hope of later incorporating it into a framework.

Here are some simple problems to fix:

5492    Error on leaving IDLE with quit() or exit() under Linux
6649    idlelib/rpc.py missing exit status on exithook
6698    IDLE no longer opens only an edit window when configured to do so
8900    IDLE crashes if Preference set to At Startup -> Open Edit Window
13179    IDLE uses common tkinter variables across all editor windows
13495    IDLE: Regressions - Two ColorDelegator instances loaded and -e 
no longer edits new files.
14254    IDLE - shell restart during readline does not reset readline
16655    IDLE list.append calltips test failures
16887    IDLE - tabify/untabify applied when clicking Cancel

Debugger issues:

14105    Breakpoints in debug lost if line is inserted; IDLE
14146    IDLE: source line in editor doesn't highlight when debugging
15347    IDLE - does not close if the debugger was active
15348    IDLE - shell becomes unresponsive if debugger windows is closed 
while active.

Calltip issues:

7883    CallTips.py _find_constructor does not work
16630    IDLE: Calltip fails if __getattr__ raises exception

Keybinding issues:

4765    IDLE fails to "Delete Custom Key Set" properly
6092    IDLE: Changed Shortcuts don't show up in menu
6739    IDLE window won't start or show up after assgining new key in 
options v2.5.2 and 3.1.1
11437    IDLE crash on startup with typo in config-keys.cfg
12387    IDLE save keyboard shortcut problem
1080387    Making IDLE Themes and Keys Config more Robust

File Completion issues:

14937    IDLE's deficiency in the completion of file names (Python 32, 
Windows XP)
16198    IDLE - tabbing in a string always brings up file completion window

sys.stderr == None errors:

12274    "Print window" menu on IDLE aborts whole application
13582    IDLE and pythonw.exe stderr problem
14576    IDLE: closes when writing warnings on Windows
15363    Idle/tkinter ~x.py 'save as' fails. closes idle

Others:

8231    Unable to run IDLE without write-access to config directory
14440    Close background process if IDLE closes abnormally.
15862    IDLE not working when due to wrong Hard Drive point of 
os.path.expanduser
17224    can not open idle in python 2.7.3

Let's do this.

- Roger