New Editor Choices (PyPE Quick Start) 26 Apr, 2005
My new favorite editor: PyPE (note that with Python 2.4,
you also need to make the change noted
in the forum in order
for it to launch. It could use a quick-start guide though, since the setup.py script actually tries to
compile it using a program that isn’t included… and given that a google search for pype quick-start
returns nothing of the sort, here’s my contribution to the project (cc-nc-sa, feel free to grab and include).
Okay, here we go.
- Install Python and wxPython. It’s not rocket science. Yes they have to be in that order.
- If you used the current versions of Python and wxPython, then you have to patch one line (link in previous paragraph) using a text editor of your choice. (They seem to be using DOS newlines so Notepad is safe.)
- Open a terminal of your choice (I use
ZSHon Windows for the moment, you can usecmdor whatever), and runpython pype.py. - Profit!
There really isn’t that much to getting it going, it’s just not documented anywhere. One of the major things I’d like to see in an editor is automatic word-wrapping when it gets to a given length, or at least some sort of line that shows me where that spot is (50col, 80col, whatever). This is my first project when I get time after finals, see if this is perhaps exposed in the editing component and can just be toggled.
My other favorite editor is vanilla Scintilla, the same editing component which PyPE embeds… but the Unicode support in their demo app SciTE is much better than that of PyPE (probably a flag somewhere). I don’t like the colors as much (the italics are also annoying) but I really like this editing control a lot more than Dev-PHP which is what I have been using till now, which doesn’t support Unicode, crashes often, and contains a number of annoying Windows-specific bugs related to the “dirty” flag being reset when the app loses focus and drag-drop code being disabled when there are no documents (precisely the time I probably want to drag something onto it!).