[Idle-dev] About IDLE vs IDLE Help

[Terry Reedy]

On 6/6/2017 3:10 PM, Sean Felipe Wolfe wrote:
> Should be a pretty straightforward change -- how about a pull request?

Thank you for the offer, but I already plan to do this as part of 
revamping About IDLE.  See below.

> Speaking of which -- IDLE is still using bitbucket and bzr yes ? As 
> opposed to git? Is there a separate repository at this point or is it 
> coupled to the Python main line?

IDLE is still part of the main Python repository.  Until Feb 10, we used 
mercurial (hg) hosted on hg.python.org.  We are now using git at 
github.com/python/cpython.

A big change is switching from merging forward to 'default', which was 
generally easy, to backporting from master, which is much harder.  I am 
not yet able to properly test backports, and I have stopped merging PRs 
into master until I can.

A positive effect of the switch is that two new contributors are 
submitting PRs for IDLE.  What I now need more than more code is reviews 
of both design and submitted code.

For instance, in 2015, we briefly discussed here revamping and 
modernizing About IDLE.  I am no longer constrained from doing so by 
back-compatibility concerns.  Some possible (?) and definite (!) changes:
1? Black on white instead of white on gray.
2! ...Development and Learning Environment
3! link to subscription page.  The directly email dates to before 
subscription was required (due to numerous off-topic and spam posts).
3b. Direct support questions to other forums.
4! Make docs url a link to open page in browser.  (Will need testing on 
3 major systems.)
5? Replace buttons with blue links, even if open in text viewer instead 
of browser.  (Inspired by About Notepad++.)
6? Move "Python License and Copyright" to bottom, delete Credits.
7? Readme has changed from user summary to a guide to idlelib aimed at 
contributors.  Making 'README' a link embedding in a sentence would 
allow a short explanation.
8? 'NEWS' => "What's New"
9. Credits is a decade out of date and should be either deleted from 
About or updated somehow.

Any comments?

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy