Feature or enhancement
IDLE has no way to browse or search for a Unicode character. Inserting one requires already knowing its code point (and typing an escape) or pasting it from another application.
Besides making characters easy to insert, such a tool is useful for learning about Unicode — exploring blocks, looking up a character's name, category, and other properties, and seeing how it is written as an escape, as UTF-8 bytes, as an XML or HTML reference, and in the normalization forms.
I propose a Character Browser, similar to KDE's kcharselect and GNOME Characters, added as a CharSelect extension on the Edit menu (available in both the Shell and the editor).
Features:
- A grid of Unicode blocks selected from a drop-down, scrollable, with hover and selection highlight.
- Search by character name substring, or by code point in many notations:
U+2764, 0x2764, ❤, ❤, a bare hex/decimal number, \u/\U/\x/\N{...}/simple escapes, surrogate pairs, and a UTF-8 byte escape run.
- A detail panel with three tabs: an Overview (name, code point, decimal), a Repr tab (literal, Python escape, UTF-8 bytes, surrogate pair, XML and HTML references,
\N{...}), and a Unicode tab (block, category, bidi, combining, East Asian width, mirrored, decomposition, numeric values, and normalization forms).
- Insert the character at the cursor of the editor or Shell (replacing any selection, and staying within the Shell's input area), or Copy it to the clipboard. Double-clicking a character in the grid inserts it.
- On the detail tabs, clicking a value copies it and double-clicking inserts it.
When opened with an editor selection, the browser seeds the search with it.
A PR will follow.
Related (not a duplicate): #80648 (help with invisible characters).
Linked PRs
Feature or enhancement
IDLE has no way to browse or search for a Unicode character. Inserting one requires already knowing its code point (and typing an escape) or pasting it from another application.
Besides making characters easy to insert, such a tool is useful for learning about Unicode — exploring blocks, looking up a character's name, category, and other properties, and seeing how it is written as an escape, as UTF-8 bytes, as an XML or HTML reference, and in the normalization forms.
I propose a Character Browser, similar to KDE's kcharselect and GNOME Characters, added as a
CharSelectextension on the Edit menu (available in both the Shell and the editor).Features:
U+2764,0x2764,❤,❤, a bare hex/decimal number,\u/\U/\x/\N{...}/simple escapes, surrogate pairs, and a UTF-8 byte escape run.\N{...}), and a Unicode tab (block, category, bidi, combining, East Asian width, mirrored, decomposition, numeric values, and normalization forms).When opened with an editor selection, the browser seeds the search with it.
A PR will follow.
Related (not a duplicate): #80648 (help with invisible characters).
Linked PRs