Consider bumping Python version requirement

[jeanas]

I just noticed instances of with open(filename, 'r'):, where encoding="utf-8" is missing. This means that a system-dependent encoding can be used instead of UTF-8 (see https://peps.python.org/pep-0686/#motivation).

The INSTALL file states that Frescobaldi requires Python ≥ 3.6. However, Python 3.6 went EOL at the end of year 2021. If we bump the requirement to Python 3.7, we can use Python's UTF-8 mode, which makes UTF-8 encoding the default (and will become the default in Python 3.15, as proposed in PEP 686 linked above). Then we no longer have to care about encodings.

Judging from #1285, we cannot bump higher than 3.7 though.

[PeterBjuhr]

Sounds good to me if you are confident everything will hold for 3.7! 👍

[fedelibre]

Judging from #1285, we cannot bump higher than 3.7 though.

Are you referring to the Mac issues mentioned by @dliessi in that conversation? I wonder if they are still valid after almost 3 years with latest PyQt5.

Anyway, I think that bumping to 3.7 should be safe. Will you send a PR?

[jeanas]

Will do.

[jeanas]

I asked a question about UTF-8 mode on https://discuss.python.org/t/packaging-python-script-with-utf-8-mode/23813.

[dliessi]

Regarding my comment in #1285, I still cannot recall what the problem was, but I packaged 3.1.3 with Python 3.9, so feel free to bump the requirement up to that version.

I'm trying with Python 3.11, let's see if packaging 3.2 works this time...

[jeanas]

OK, thanks!

[jeanas]

From the discuss.python.org thread, it seems that the goal of using UTF-8 mode is incompatible with the goal of making pip install frescobaldi work. The latter is important to me at least, so I guess we should give up on UTF-8 mode, sadly.