Please, make “add Python to PATH” checkbox active by default.
Please, open “Shell” and “Edit” windows next to each other when starting IDLE.
On Windows you can use the py command that is on your PATH already.
It’s not that obvious for beginners and by the way, the installation would go smoothly if “…PATH” was checked by default.
1 Like
I just went through the installation of IDLE and agree that it should be the default. I ended up doing 3+ installs because I followed the instructions to not put it in the path by one user and ended up going back and forth on it. It is now in my path and things are better for me.
One thing to consider is if a user installs two or more versions of python.
Which one will be THE python.exe? e.g. first on the PATH?
It should be with the version number like “python314.exe”, so ALL installed versions will work correctly.
This is not going to change, and in fact the legacy Windows installer is deprecated as of Python 3.14: see the documentation (which is still slightly forward-looking for now), or PEP 773 which describes the new scheme.
And what about opening “Shell” and “Edit” windows together when starting IDLE?
Well, if you checked the “…PATH” checkbox while installing all the versions you have, then all of them all already in the Windows startup “…bat” file. When you start any of them, proper version is recognized somehow, so I don’t know why checked box by default could be any problem.
The operation of IDLE is completely separate from Python installation. Changing Settings to allow both Editor and Shell selected might seem easy, but it would be difficult to very difficult. There is one collection of idle configuration settings per user for all python-idle versions. The current configuration line defaults to editor-on-startup= 0 and the alternative is ...1.
I use ‘0’ and would hate having a bland editor pop up, and I edit existing Windows over 95% of the time. I could make 1 mean ‘both’, instead of ‘instead of’, but I would expect editor-startup people (who perhaps mostly start with an existing file) to object to that.
This seems like low priority to me. It is trivial to open either Shell or an editor from the other. This is the first request for this in my 15 years of maintaining IDLE. However, I will keep the idea in mind in case I ever succeed in adding tabs to IDLE windows.
Having “Editor” and “Shell” opened at the same time will make IDLE one step nearer to professional IDE’s and, because I teach Python and writing a book (in Macedonian) for Python, will make it easier to explain to students and readers.
This include “Add Python to PATH” request to be checked by default.