Idle: better management of Shell window output

[terryjreedy]

BPO	22010
Nosy	@terryjreedy

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = 'https://github.com/terryjreedy'
closed_at = None
created_at = <Date 2014-07-19.01:16:49.821>
labels = ['expert-IDLE', 'type-feature', '3.10']
title = 'Idle: better management of Shell window output'
updated_at = <Date 2020-06-06.23:30:25.134>
user = 'https://github.com/terryjreedy'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2020-06-06.23:30:25.134>
actor = 'terry.reedy'
assignee = 'terry.reedy'
closed = False
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['IDLE']
creation = <Date 2014-07-19.01:16:49.821>
creator = 'terry.reedy'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 22010
keywords = []
message_count = 2.0
messages = ['223454', '370861']
nosy_count = 1.0
nosy_names = ['terry.reedy']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = None
stage = 'test needed'
status = 'open'
superseder = None
type = 'enhancement'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue22010'
versions = ['Python 3.10']

[terryjreedy]

Some of these ideas are in other issues, but possibly as side-thoughts. Any issues that directly address one of them can be added as dependency.

The appropriate place for menu entries would be the Shell menu, which currently has only 2, 1 of which I have never used. I don't necessarily think everything needs a key shortcut. There are already too many for me to remember.

1. Clear/restart shell. The same as restart, but also clear after. If the shell is burdened with unwanted lines of text, let someone start over without quitting and restarting.

2. Move last output to output window. Long help output, as for classes, would be a prime example use. I am sure this idea has been mentioned, at least as a side note.

3. Delete last output. In the editor and while editing a statement, Undo undoes the effect of one or more of the last keypresses. I propose that in the shell, after <enter> submits a statement for processing, prints the output, and a new prompt, that Undo ^Z erase the new prompt, erase the output, and put the cursor at the end of the previously entered statement so it can be edited. (Idea prompted by Rick Johnson.)

One use case for this is to correct syntax and logic errors, especially when one is using Idle to prepare examples to copy and paste elsewhere. I do this constantly and manually filtering out bad input and output is a major nuisance. Another use case to simply delete unwanted output, especially if long. In the latter case, one would not want the new prompt deleted, but ^Z can only act one way, and I don't think we need two new commands.

4. We need one or more custom cut methods, as proposed in bpo-11838 "make interactive code savable as a runnable script". Such issues will depend on how we replace tabs in bpo-7676.

[terryjreedy]

1 is a another issue. 2. was partly taken care of by squeezer.
3 is needed. SyntaxError is often best handled by editing.
4 is still needed. Tab replacement will happen with a sidebar.