New submission from Terry J. Reedy:
The General tab of the IDLE Preferences dialog has this section with two
radiobuttons:
Autosave Preferences
At Start of Run (F5) () Prompt to Save () No Prompt
The latter option actually means "No prompt unless the window is a new window
('Untitled') that has never been saved." In the latter case, there is a prompt
anyway.
This issue proposes that the current No Prompt option be more truthfully
labelled and that a true no-prompt option be added. Currently in .cnf
configuration files, autosave = 0 or 1. The new option would be 2 ('really
true' ;-).
The motivation is to provide a default scratch file for throwaway code and
thereby encourage more use of the editor even for single multi-line statements,
which are harder to edit in the Shell than single-line statements. The behavior
of Untitled windows would not otherwise change.
----------------
Possible dialog forms
Autosave Preferences
When Running (F5) a window with unsaved changes, prompt to save
() Always () Only for Untitled () Never
I find it slightly confusing that Autosave yes is selected in the negative with
'no prompt'. An alternative:
Autosave Preferences
When Running (F5) a window with unsaved changes,
autosave instead of prompting to save
() Never () Always except for Untitled () Always
Another alternative is to retitle the section
Prompt to Save versus Autosave
When Running (F5) a window with unsaved changes, prompt to save
() Always () Only for Untitled () Never
--------------
However the dialog is worded, the new option would mean that unsaved new
windows would be autosaved on Run to .idlerc/untitled.py. (I picked this
directory because it already contains 4 per-user files, including
recent-files.lst, and has to be writable.) This would be a common scratch file
for all Untitled windows.
The particular Untitled window saved should not be 'associated' with that path.
Its title would not change to 'untitled.py'. Idle allows only one edit window
per disk file (path) but allows multiple Untitled windows not associated with
any path.
The 'unsaved' flag on the window would not be cleared, so that closing the
window would still bring up the 'save this untitled window' message box. (The
alternative would be to clear it, but unclear it if any other Untitled window
were saved.)
The full path to untitled.py would be added (or moved) to the top of the Recent
Files list, just as with any other file. The file could then be retrieved (if
not overwritten) in a later session. This would be particularly useful if
running it caused a crash or freeze.
------------------
This proposal is based on Bruce Sherwood's vague description of a feature coded
by G. Polo. I could not find a tracker issue for it. One apparent difference is
that I propose adding a third option to the existing set instead of a new
binary option. I have no idea whether Polo proposed to silently save the file
(as I propose) or add a mechanism to truly run without saving (which is how a
user will see it unless they look at Recent Files). In any case, my proposal is
for a pretty minimal change. I believe it would take extra code to prevent the
Recent Files listing.
----------
components: IDLE
messages: 197997
nosy: bsherwood, roger.serwy, terry.reedy
priority: normal
severity: normal
stage: test needed
status: open
title: Idle: add option to autosave 'Untitled' edit window
type: enhancement
versions: Python 2.7, Python 3.3, Python 3.4
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Python tracker <rep...@bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue19042>
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