[Visualpython-users] Mac package

[Joe H. <hea...@gm...>]

This morning, one of my students downloaded and installed John Armstrong's
Mac VPython package. It installed and works flawlessly, but I just want to
point out something and offer a solution. The package creates a generic
shell script icon in /Applications that must be double clicked to start
VPython. Upon termination of IDLE, the Terminal window is left open and X11
is left running. The former can be fixed in Terminal's preferences. The
latter can be fixed by manually closing X11.
I have a droplet that works with a Fink installation. It automatically
handles calling the VPython scripts, initiating X11 (only under OS X 10.5
and later!), and closing everything when the IDLE editor is exited. It also
provides drag and drop editing of Python scripts. Multiple files can be
dropped onto the droplet icon and opened in different IDLE windows. One
problem that I don't how to fix is that once IDLE is open, drag and drop
doesn't work. As long as the user has a working Fink installation of VPython
running on OS X 10.5 or later, the droplet can simply be copied to
/Applications and placed in the Dock for quick access.

I'll happily make the droplet available to anyone who wants to use it.

Joe