In article
<aanlktimruhticd07t-shacgp3rgd3o4sej8fsk7af...@mail.gmail.com>,
neoethical <neoethi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> New to programming and after doing some research I've chosed to work with
> Python. One thing that's bothering me is that I would like to set up a
> specific folder in my Documents folder to hold my modules. How do I go about
> doing this? I've found the way to change it for each IDLE session but I'd
> like to make it check the folder automatically. I've done a bunch of
> searches and have come up with nothing helpful.
On OS X, depending on which version of Python you are using, there are
usually two ways to start IDLE: either by launching IDLE.app (often
found in /Applications/Python x.y or /Applications/MacPython x.y) or by
invoking IDLE from the command line (generally something like
/usr/local/bin/idlex.y). When started from a terminal command line,
IDLE uses the current working directory ("folder") as the default for
opening and saving files from the shell window. When you "launch"
IDLE.app (by double-clicking on its icon, for example), it always uses
Documents as the default working directory.
Unfortunately, AFAIK, there is no built-in way to specify a different
default for the shell window, which is a bit annoying. The simplest way
to work around it, I think, would be to always start IDLE from the
command line after changing to the desired default directory. So, from
a terminal session (in Terminal.app or equivalent), something like this
for, say, python3.1 installed from python.org:
cd /path/to/default/directory
/usr/local/bin/idle3.1
The equivalent could be turned into a shell function or alias or an
AppleScript app or Automator action.
>From the command line, you can also give IDLE a list of one or more
files to open, each in its own file window. When the focus is on a file
window, file command such as open and save default to the directory of
the opened file (this is also true in IDLE.app). So you could have
something like this:
cd /path/to/project/directory
/usr/local/bin/idle3.1 my_mod_1.py my_mod_2.py ...
or, if you want to edit all of the python modules in a directory:
cd /path/to/project/directory
/usr/local/bin/idle3.1 *.py
You can achieve a similar effect (except for the shell window) in the
Finder by dragging the files to the IDLE.app icon (in a Finder window or
on the dock). Double-clicking on the .py files themselves can be made
to work but it's a bit of a crap shoot which version of IDLE or other
app might actually be launched; it's best to avoid depending on that
mechanism.
--
Ned Deily,
n...@acm.org
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