Discussion: some potential Qt console refactoring

[wesm]

Background: I'm in the process of building a small Qt application which I want to have, among other things, a tabbed IPython Qt console widget. Currently the Qt frontend main window and application are factored as a standalone application, so I started to tinker with what might be the best way to make the tabbed console into a reusable component for other GUI applications. So I wanted to pick your brains about it.

I have a few questions too:

• Are there tests for the app? I guess the only way may be to use it :/
• Are there any plans to set up alternate environments in the Qt console so that you can launch remote kernels via the Qt console (preferably with a little configuration window where you can add new kernel launch commands)? If not I may do this at some point.

[epatters]

The Qt console is designed to be embeddable in other applications, but not via the classes you are considering. The class of interest for you is RichIPythonWidget, which provides the basic console frontend without any coupling to IPython's application layer. Your application would then be responsible for launching kernel(s), placing the widget in a tab group or other layout container, etc.

On the other hand, the main window class is indeed quite coupled to the IPython qtconsole application, but it was never intended to be used outside of IPython and we are not, as far as I know, making any promises about its API being stable across versions. The functionality provided by the main window class is quite specific and is not appropriate for many embedding use cases. Of course, you may find it a useful starting point for building your own application.

As far as tests go, some components of the Qt console have unit tests but generally the coverage is poor. This is largely due to the fact that many components of the console are difficult to test, but there is definitely room for improvement here.

[epatters]

Oh, and as your final question indicates, the built-in Qt console application is quite barebones. Many features, including more sophisticated kernel management, would be great to have. We would welcome contributions on this front.

[fperez]

@wesm, does what @epatters say help you out? I'm trying to flush our PR queue, and would like to know if you consider this one for merging, or if Evan's guidance made you change your mind in any way...

[wesm]

You can safely close the PR unmerged. Thanks for checking

Sent from my mobile device

On Apr 14, 2012, at 9:48 PM, Fernando Perez
reply@reply.github.com
wrote:

@wesm, does what @epatters say help you out? I'm trying to flush our PR queue, and would like to know if you consider this one for merging, or if Evan's guidance made you change your mind in any way...

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[fperez]

OK, closing as per @wesm's request. Thanks for letting us know.