[Python-Dev] Removing IDLE from the standard library (original) (raw)

Stephen J. Turnbull stephen at xemacs.org
Thu Jul 15 04:43:40 CEST 2010

Guilherme Polo writes:

Adding tabs doesn't necessarily mean a single window, you should be able to continue using multiple windows with single tabs if that is your preference.

But it's very important to be able to move tabs across windows or panes. For example, in XEmacs this is a somewhat frequent pattern for me:

C-x C-f /some/long/path/foo.c # edit foo.c

work for a while ... oops, need to see what's up with foo.h

C-x C-f foo.h # look Ma, no path!

want to see both simultaneously to work on several prototypes in succession

C-x 5 b foo.c # pull up foo.c in a new X # window, use mouse to position

That's quite painless.

In many apps, however, you would have to select the foo.c tab, close it, bring up a new window, and open foo.c using the long path (presumably with a file browser interface, but often enough the default directory is wherever you started the editor, not most recently used file). Recent Files may help, but even there some apps don't register a file with Recent Files unless it's been changed.

Since these considerations are somewhat subtle, I think it's worth mentioning for your consideration. Eg, it's not clear to me that Recent Files should contain every file you've looked at, but if it doesn't, it has the bad effect described above. So if you're not registering a file with recent files, there should be some other shortcut way to move its display (eg, in a tab) across windows.

N.B. While I personally love Emacsen (so there, Nick Coghlan!), I don't recommend modeling anything in IDLE on Emacs UIs, which were designed by a guy with RSI who couldn't pay rent (until after he got the MacArthur) let alone buy a 640x480-graphics-capable monitor. :-)

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