[Visualpython-users] VPython idle

[Bruce S. <ba...@an...>]

--On Tuesday, May 29, 2001 14:29 -0500 "Patrick K. O'Brien" 
<po...@or...> wrote:

> Mistakes happen. Thanks for the info. I will reinstall as you suggest. Any
> idea what the future folder name will be so that I can manually set my
> system up in anticipation of the official procedure? I'm assuming python's
> IDLE will continue to go into tools\idle while vpython's version will go
> into, what? Tools\vpython? Tools\vidle?

I don't know what name to give the "official" idle folder. But for the sake 
of novice users it is the VPython idle that will go in Tools/idle, so that 
all the shortcuts will point to it (experts who want the "official" one can 
of course make a shortcut to it).

The VPython idle has a very large number of important enhancements which 
are of particular importance to novices but useful for others as well:

Spawns a separate process, so if anything goes wrong during the run, IDLE 
stays up.

One-button (F5) user interface much better for rapid edit/run cycle. This 
is particularly important for novices, for whom the interpretative 
environment is not suitable, but it works very well for experts, too.

Infinite undo.

Automatically saves file at start of run, so very difficult to lose any 
work.

Rationalized menus.

Maintains scrolling output window across runs, scrolling forward on each 
run, so easy to scroll back to earlier run, which has a header.

For Visual programs it is important that upon reaching the end of the 
program the graphics window should NOT go away but be inspectable while 
examining code. The VPython Idle and Visual environment conspire to make 
this work properly.