IDLE: change Shell window title

[terryjreedy]

BPO	41775
Nosy	@terryjreedy, @csabella, @miss-islington, @E-Paine
PRs	bpo-41775: Make 'IDLE Shell' the shell title  #22399 [3.9] bpo-41775: Make 'IDLE Shell' the shell title (GH-22399) #22400 [3.8] bpo-41775: Make 'IDLE Shell' the shell title (GH-22399) #22401

^{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 = <Date 2020-09-24.20:09:15.370>
created_at = <Date 2020-09-13.04:00:10.860>
labels = ['expert-IDLE', 'type-feature', '3.8', '3.9', '3.10']
title = 'IDLE: change Shell window title'
updated_at = <Date 2020-09-24.20:09:15.369>
user = 'https://github.com/terryjreedy'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2020-09-24.20:09:15.369>
actor = 'terry.reedy'
assignee = 'terry.reedy'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2020-09-24.20:09:15.370>
closer = 'terry.reedy'
components = ['IDLE']
creation = <Date 2020-09-13.04:00:10.860>
creator = 'terry.reedy'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 41775
keywords = ['patch']
message_count = 5.0
messages = ['376819', '377455', '377457', '377458', '377459']
nosy_count = 4.0
nosy_names = ['terry.reedy', 'cheryl.sabella', 'miss-islington', 'epaine']
pr_nums = ['22399', '22400', '22401']
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'fixed'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = 'enhancement'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue41775'
versions = ['Python 3.8', 'Python 3.9', 'Python 3.10']

[terryjreedy]

The IDLE Shell window title is set with pyshell line 836
shell_title = "Python " + python_version() + " Shell"
The python_version() part was added in March 2013 by the first patch for bpo-17390: https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/74d9a9507019.

In bpo-41765, Mark Summerfield suggested in a side-comment that the title should be 'IDLE'.

E. Paine agreed that it should be changed, suggesting that it contributes to the fact that "there are lots people when first starting who think the IDLE shell *is the* Python shell". I have noticed this fact on Stackoverflow, where about half the questions tagged 'python-idle' have nothing to do with IDLE. (I regularly remove such mistaken tags.) I have wondered why and how to better counter this. For one thing, it results in users blaming IDLE for Python behavior, such as not running buggy code. I never noticed before that IDLE promotes the confusion a bit in the shell title.

Issues such as bpo-37903 (move prompt to shell sidebar, which I am planning to review soon) and bpo-37892 (separate input area) will differentiate the IDLE Shell from the standard REPL even more.

Paine suggested 'IDLE <version> Shell'. I don't want to suggest that IDLE is independently versioned, and prefer 'IDLE Shell (<version>)'. The parenthesized version is used for editor windows (and was also added by bpo-17390). On Windows, mousing over a taskbar icon initially shows about 10-14 variable-width letters of the title. Is 'Shell' or '3.x.y' more important to be ensured of visibility?

Other suggestions and comments?

[If IDLE becomes a tabbed-window application, the window title would be 'IDLE (version)' and the shell would be on a 'Shell' tab.]

[terryjreedy]

New changeset 05cc881 by Terry Jan Reedy in branch 'master':
bpo-41775: Make 'IDLE Shell' the shell title (bpo-22399)
05cc881

[miss-islington]

New changeset 4080f12 by Miss Islington (bot) in branch '3.9':
bpo-41775: Make 'IDLE Shell' the shell title (GH-22399)
4080f12

[miss-islington]

New changeset 18e59f5 by Miss Islington (bot) in branch '3.8':
bpo-41775: Make 'IDLE Shell' the shell title (GH-22399)
18e59f5

[terryjreedy]

In the last few months, there has been an increase in bpo issues mis-tagged IDLE. Today's example: bpo-41774