On maxOS, IDLE app menu can become nearly blank

[roseman]

BPO	24815
Nosy	@terryjreedy, @roseman

^{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 2015-08-07.04:25:24.837>
labels = ['expert-IDLE', 'type-bug', '3.9']
title = 'On maxOS, IDLE app menu can become nearly blank'
updated_at = <Date 2020-01-07.22:04:15.151>
user = 'https://github.com/roseman'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2020-01-07.22:04:15.151>
actor = 'terry.reedy'
assignee = 'terry.reedy'
closed = False
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['IDLE']
creation = <Date 2015-08-07.04:25:24.837>
creator = 'markroseman'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 24815
keywords = []
message_count = 2.0
messages = ['248169', '359552']
nosy_count = 2.0
nosy_names = ['terry.reedy', 'markroseman']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = None
stage = None
status = 'open'
superseder = None
type = 'behavior'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue24815'
versions = ['Python 3.9']

[roseman]

It's fairly easy to get IDLE to revert back to an empty menubar, i.e. just a Python menu.

For example, open a shell, debugger, and editor window. Click on debugger window, then editor window, then close editor window. Focus goes back to debugger, but doesn't have a proper menubar.

[terryjreedy]

The nearly blank menu has the Apple icon and the IDLE dropdown. I verified that this can be generated with either Debugger or IDLE Help, which are non-modal non-menu windows.

Currently, IDLE has a separate menu for each editor and output and the shell. On macOS, focusing on a menu window pastes that windows menu onto the app menu. Focusing on a non-menu window leaves the app menu alone, leaving most items linked to the menu window that had the previous focus. It is not especially good that a majority of menu items do not apply to the current focused window.

Closing a menu window whose menu is currently the app menu removes all but IDLE from the app menu. Closing any window shifts focus, by default, back to the previous focused window. So if an app menu window is closed and the previous window is not a menu window, the app menu is cleared and not re-painted.

The nearly blank menu looks odd, but is easily restored by focusing on a menu window. To fix it anyway, we would have to explicitly focus on a remaining menu window when one is closed. Or wait until IDLE's menus system is re-factored in such a way that blanking never occurs.