hello there. I'm using notepad++ at the moment and i want to switch to something a little more 'better' suited to python. Ive already gone through the huge list of text editors on wiki. but yeah cant decide....

what would you recommend?

I would reccomend using Wind IDE 101. Its free and great, i recently upgraded to the Personal version (about $50 AUS) and that is exellent, it has a great debugger as well as having so many customisable features.

My biggest complaint with Notepad++ is that I can't configure it to use tab characters for C / C++ code and spaces for Python.

I've been using the 'PyAlaMode' editor that came with one of the librarys I install (I think it comes with wxPython). It doesn't debug, but it does do syntax highlighting and has a pretty-good interactive execution window. I'm sure there are better editors out there, but its another case of how many editors do I really want to learn.

I would reccomend using Wind IDE 101. Its free and great, i recently upgraded to the Personal version (about $50 AUS) and that is exellent, it has a great debugger as well as having so many customisable features.

+1

I used for long Wing IDE 101 and Upgraded to Personal. I will then Upgrade to Pro. some times later. Also Netbeans have their Early Access version of python with code completion and debugger. Also drpython and pydev + eclipse
anyway is a matter of choice

Thanks guys, im trying out wings and pydev now. Are there anyother lightweight editors you know of?

I have been using Dr Python for a while now, I love it. It's easy to use and the text editor is really nice and source browser are really user friendly

For lightweight editors you can go for scite
Heavy weight ones are vimand Emacs
I would tell you go for vim because of nice book by swaroop c.h
www.swaroopch.com

I always find myself using Geany whether I'm on Windows or Linux. It isn't built specifically for python, but it adapts well to python code.

It's snappy, has some good tools, and doesn't get in your way.

Member Avatar for leegeorg07

i like Scite and the python idle

The combination of pydev + eclipse is a huge sluggish thing. I enjoy DrPython, it has some nice downloadable plugins like code assist and run from buffer.

My test criteria for a good editor is how it handles the input() function in its output window.

My test criteria for a good editor is how it handles the input() function in its output window.

How do you do that? :)

Well i know that some of them pop up a new windows for a raw_input/input while others ask you to enter it in the debug window down the bottom or something simmilar.

I know that for many people the pop up box is great but personally i really find it annoying after a while so i generally stick with ones that do not use pop ups.

How do you do that? :)

Simply write the following short code with your IDE editor and then run it from that editor:

age = input("Enter your age: ")
print(age)

Some nice editors like DrPython or even IDLE will show the prompt in the output window, just like you would expect. Some other editors use their own small popup window showing the prompt and an entry field. Annoying, but it works. Many other editors really screw things up, no prompt is shown in their output window, or the cursor is not placed right, or an error is thrown sometimes even before you can enter the data.

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