[issue44574] IDLE: Implement or delete python-context-help.

[Terry J. Reedy]

New submission from Terry J. Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu>:

The config.IdleConf.GetCoreKeys keyBindings dict contains
   '<<python-context-help>>': ['<Shift-F1>']
The was included in the initial version by Steven Gava, 9930061c, on 2001 Dec 2.  So it appears in the Keys page of the config dialog, as noticed by Mondher on SO ((https://stackoverflow.com/questions/68263769/idle-shell-context-documentation-broken)

The string does not appear elsewhere in idlelib, nor is the feature mentioned in the IDLE doc.  So it is unimplemented and undocumented.  Based on experience with other IDEs (Mathematica) Mondher suggests that one should be able to select a word and have it looked up in the index of the document opened by python-doc F1.  'Very useful' he says.

On Windows, F1 opens an offline Windows help window with the Python docs.  Currently, modifier(s)-F1 is interpreted as F1 and the help window is opened.  I presume a shift-F1 binding will override that. I also presume that an argument can be added to the Windows open-help command.

I don't know about online docs on other systems and don't think we can access indexes on opened python webpages.  Where shift-F1 does not work, a message should be displayed.

If we decided to not implement index search anywhere, the line in config.py should be removed.

----------
assignee: terry.reedy
components: IDLE
messages: 397058
nosy: terry.reedy
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: IDLE: Implement or delete python-context-help.
versions: Python 3.11

_______________________________________
Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue44574>
_______________________________________