1 Writing an IDLE extension 2 ========================= 3 4 An IDLE extension can define new key bindings and menu entries for IDLE 5 edit windows. There is a simple mechanism to load extensions when IDLE 6 starts up and to attach them to each edit window. (It is also possible 7 to make other changes to IDLE, but this must be done by editing the IDLE 8 source code.) 9 10 The list of extensions loaded at startup time is configured by editing 11 the file config-extensions.def. See below for details. 12 13 An IDLE extension is defined by a class. Methods of the class define 14 actions that are invoked by event bindings or menu entries. Class (or 15 instance) variables define the bindings and menu additions; these are 16 automatically applied by IDLE when the extension is linked to an edit 17 window. 18 19 An IDLE extension class is instantiated with a single argument, 20 `editwin', an EditorWindow instance. The extension cannot assume much 21 about this argument, but it is guaranteed to have the following instance 22 variables: 23 24 text a Text instance (a widget) 25 io an IOBinding instance (more about this later) 26 flist the FileList instance (shared by all edit windows) 27 28 (There are a few more, but they are rarely useful.) 29 30 The extension class must not directly bind Window Manager (e.g. X) events. 31 Rather, it must define one or more virtual events, e.g. <<zoom-height>>, and 32 corresponding methods, e.g. zoom_height_event(). The virtual events will be 33 bound to the corresponding methods, and Window Manager events can then be bound 34 to the virtual events. (This indirection is done so that the key bindings can 35 easily be changed, and so that other sources of virtual events can exist, such 36 as menu entries.) 37 38 An extension can define menu entries. This is done with a class or instance 39 variable named menudefs; it should be a list of pairs, where each pair is a 40 menu name (lowercase) and a list of menu entries. Each menu entry is either 41 None (to insert a separator entry) or a pair of strings (menu_label, 42 virtual_event). Here, menu_label is the label of the menu entry, and 43 virtual_event is the virtual event to be generated when the entry is selected. 44 An underscore in the menu label is removed; the character following the 45 underscore is displayed underlined, to indicate the shortcut character (for 46 Windows). 47 48 At the moment, extensions cannot define whole new menus; they must define 49 entries in existing menus. Some menus are not present on some windows; such 50 entry definitions are then ignored, but key bindings are still applied. (This 51 should probably be refined in the future.) 52 53 Extensions are not required to define menu entries for all the events they 54 implement. (They are also not required to create keybindings, but in that 55 case there must be empty bindings in cofig-extensions.def) 56 57 Here is a complete example: 58 59 class ZoomHeight: 60 61 menudefs = [ 62 ('edit', [ 63 None, # Separator 64 ('_Zoom Height', '<<zoom-height>>'), 65 ]) 66 ] 67 68 def __init__(self, editwin): 69 self.editwin = editwin 70 71 def zoom_height_event(self, event): 72 "...Do what you want here..." 73 74 The final piece of the puzzle is the file "config-extensions.def", which is 75 used to configure the loading of extensions and to establish key (or, more 76 generally, event) bindings to the virtual events defined in the extensions. 77 78 See the comments at the top of config-extensions.def for information. It's 79 currently necessary to manually modify that file to change IDLE's extension 80 loading or extension key bindings. 81 82 For further information on binding refer to the Tkinter Resources web page at 83 python.org and to the Tk Command "bind" man page. 84
