Pythonista 3 suggestions

shaun-h

The Pythonista 3 thread is filling up so I decided to start a new one, I have some suggestions for the template folder.

It allows more than just Python files which is great, but I put an image in the folder and it gets listed in the template list but it errors when you try to use it.

It might also be useful to list the file type of the template in the template list as a.txt and a.html or a.py all get listed as a in the template list and I don't know which one is which.

Webmaster4o

What do you mean by the template folder? Maybe I missed that addition.

shaun-h

In Pythonista 3 if you add a Templates folder (I think it is case sensitive) any file you put in there appears in the new file menu. I think read it in the beta notes in TestFlight?

Phuket2

On my iPad Pro, I notice that a tap or double tap in the line numbers does nothing. I can imagine this is being saved for something. But a double tap in the line numbers could be a good shortcut for select all in the editor

Phuket2

@shaun-h , I tried different versions of the case on the Templates folder. I could not see anything different in the new screen. On the latest beta 3 and have a working script in the dir.

omz

@Phuket2 Is your Templates folder in the root directory of the script library? It won't work if it's in a subfolder.

Phuket2

@omz , I assumed to do it in the site-packages folder. I moved it to root and it works. Really, it's so simple, but so nice. It's a fantastic feature.
Btw, if others are reading this, you do need to close your instance of Pythonista and relaunch for the Templates/files to show up in the new screen, well at least for me it did.
One more drink I owe you @omz 😱

Webmaster4o

@omz Perhaps this should be created by default, with a .md file explaining it (like site-packages) has

Phuket2

A setting in the ui.View.present() that allows for the behaviour that if a touch is outside the view, it's the same as hitting the X or close button as many iOS apps do. Maybe only for custom ui.Views, as you can catch will_close

JonB

@Phuket2 The way to achieve this is to add your view as a subview to a "shield view", which could simply be a button that implements a close action. @polymerchm had a nice Shield class as part of his chord app, or I believe dialogs implements something similar.

Tizzy

Pythonista console suggestion: Provide currently focused script context when the console is slid over.

So, as of right now, there is an "X" in the console window, that if a script is running can be pressed to terminate the script. Then, it becomes greyed out and is no longer capable of doing anything until the next time it is run.

What if you could run whatever script you have in focus in the editor view, from the console view via the same style play button?

Now, I understand why it might be confusing if you could launch a script from the console view without seeing what that script is (which one is in focus in the editor). So to remedy this I propose a simple solution - simply include the name of the script, in a small font, next to / over / under the play/Stop button.

dgelessus

@Tizzy That's how it was in Pythonista 1.5, but back then there were no editor tabs. With tabs it would've been more confusing than before, which is probably why it was removed.

Phuket2

@JonB , thanks. I don't really normally have a need for it. Well at least now. But I just think the present() could be beefed up overall. Like a modal param etc... I just think with some thought, it could really enhance ui.View

Webmaster4o

It'd be nice to show a vertical line before the 80th column to indicate the PEP8 max line length. This could be toggleable in settings.

dgelessus

@Webmaster4o said:

It'd be nice to show a vertical line before the 80th column to indicate the PEP8 max line length. This could be toggleable in settings.

This, but please with an adjustable column number. I'm in the "80 columns is too restrictive" camp of people, I find something like 120 more reasonable.

JonB

@Webmaster4o, what would like to show for narrow devices? It would be easy to use objc to show a continuous vertical line in the editor. But really you almost want that to only show on continuation lines which contain the 80th character?
Would you want to show sort of a broken line, which only appears on lines which approach the user set limit?

dgelessus

@JonB Every editor I know of just shows a continuous line, no matter if it's a continuation line or not. A "broken line" that only shows on the continuation lines probably wouldn't look very nice and it would also not be very obvious what it meant.

Notepad++ has an option to highlight any text over the "maximum" line length in a different color (by default ugly #00ffff cyan, just so you're REALLY aware when your line is too long), maybe something like that would be reasonable for small devices.

JonB

@dgelessus Right, i was thinking highlighting text might be an approach (but not one i could implement in objc easily). A continuous line makes sense when your device is wider than the limit... but for example my ipad in portrait gets about 78 characters. So the 80 char limit would result in a line in the second column. On iPhone, I'd imagine it would be very confusing, keeping track of the 80th character might be on the third continuation line.

Webmaster4o

@JonB @dgelessus This really seems like a simple thing @omz could implement. It's clearly useful to the average user, and wouldn't be hard to put in. I don't really like the pattern of an idea being proposed, an objc_util solution being found, and then it never gets officially implemented because there's a hack to do it for you. I think this would be a good candidate for core functionality.

ccc

@JonB wrote: It would be easy to use objc to show a continuous vertical line in the editor.

Could we see that? Just hardcode a continuous line and don't worry about line wrapping. On small screens and/or with large fonts, the line would not show up at all because it would be off the right of the screen.

Such an MVP version of this feature request spark a deeper conversation about the pros and cons of the proposal.