New submission from Terry J. Reedy: On Stackoverflow, person asked why syntax coloring sometimes stopped working, seemingly at random. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37511276/how-to-make-python-idle-editor-to-change-line-colors-according-to-the-color-map
The OP finally traced the problem to hitting ctrl-/ because of habit from using PyCharm, which bind ^/ to something else. In IDLE, cntrl-/ is bound to <<toggle-auto-coloring>>, but that is not easy to discover. (If I ever halfway knew about it, I had forgotten.) There is no menu entry and, I am sure, no mention in the doc. There is only the hard-to-search list in the Keys tab of the configuration dialog. T think that this feature should either be visible on the menu and documented and enhanced, or deleted. I am currently inclined to delete it as I cannot see hardly any use, and doubt that is sees real use, especially by beginners. It only affects the current window. It only affects future keystrokes (and pasted text), leaving current colorization as is. There is no indication that coloring is off until one types something that should be colored, and many will not know all the fine details. (This is why the SO OP had trouble pinning down the trigger.) If the toggle is kept, there should be an indication added to the status bar. Searching all IDLE issues for 'toggle' returned 24 hits, none for color. I should check hg annotate for the author of the code and issue #, if not part of the original submission. ---------- components: 2to3 (2.x to 3.x conversion tool) messages: 266773 nosy: terry.reedy priority: normal severity: normal stage: test needed status: open title: IDLE: remove Toggle Auto Coloring or add to edit menu & doc type: behavior versions: Python 3.6 _______________________________________ Python tracker <rep...@bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue27170> _______________________________________ _______________________________________________ Python-bugs-list mailing list Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-bugs-list/archive%40mail-archive.com
