[Python-Dev] IDLE in the stdlib (original) (raw)

Terry Reedy tjreedy at udel.edu
Thu Mar 21 08:03:34 CET 2013

On 3/21/2013 12:36 AM, Glenn Linderman wrote:

On 3/20/2013 5:15 PM, Terry Reedy wrote:

Broken (and quirky): it has an absurdly limited output buffer (under a thousand lines) People keep claiming that Windows CMD has a limited output buffer. It is configurable, at least to 9999 lines, which is where I have mine set. That is far too much to actually scroll back through for most practical purposes, although sometimes I do :)

See my response to the same point by Neil Hodgson, where I noticed that setting to 9999 lines somewhat disables easy scrolling. (I checked and it was 9999 also on XP.)

I'm not trying to claim that Windows CMD is wonderful, perfect, or has large numbers of redeeming values, but let's keep to the facts.

Yes, lets do. I tried to. A person who installs Python on Windows and runs Python (command prompt) instead of IDLE is confronted with a 300 line default. Someone not familiar with Command Prompt will not know that the limit can be increased. I use CP so seldom, until recently, that I had forgotten how to do so. I fiddled with the history buffer setting on the first page. That did not work so I gave up.

-- Terry Jan Reedy

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