SE|PY, the editor, the blog

Python 2.5 was released some weeks ago, wxPython 2.7 has just come out with some little new features and bug fixes and so I put together a new release of SE|PY.
In the picture on the left you can see the new look of the Notebook’s tabs, thanks to the new Widget of Andrea Gavana.
pyRXp, the xml parser used until now for reading the as ActionPanel xml files, has been removed. Now I’m using only the 4Suite xml framework for parsing files and formatting xml inside the editor.
The svn support has been disabled because there isn’t already a compatible version of pysvn for python2.5.

P.S. It’s recomended to remove any previous installation of sepy because many dll has changed.

Windows binary available here

I’ve just updated to RC22 the OSX version of SEPY.
Some of the fixes are:

- Fixed encoding issue when inserting snippet into a Document
- Fixed xml sqlite database under OSX (OperationalError while editing x(ht)ml files)
- Minor fixes into workspace panel
- Others minor fixes
- moved to wxpython 2.6.3.2rc2 for osx10.4
Download available here: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/sepy/SEPY_1.5.2RC22.dmg?download

The new Workspace panel introduced a new set of features.
One of them is the new “execute command”, which is rather different from the “user toolset” of the SEPY main menu.
Once you’ve created a new command, using “add->New Command” contextual menu within the workspace panel you will see a dialog like this (click to enlarge image):

How it works:

- name : how this item will be shown in the project tree
- command: the shell command name wich sepy will invoke (usually an .exe of .bat program)
- arguments: which arguments to be passed to the command
- start in: before invoking that command, sepy will change the current directory to the one given here (usually the same folder of the .exe file)
- run in: where display the command results (current document, new console, no console)
NB: Both “arguments” and “start in” textfields accept special arguments:

%(P)s: Directory path of the active project
%(p)s: Path of the active project
%(F)s: Directory Path of the active document
%(f)s: Path of the active document
%(ask:NAME:DEFAULT): Prompt before running command

Added in RC20:
%(ask:NAME:BROWSE_FILE): Prompt a file browse when command is run
%(ask:NAME:BROWSE_DIR): Prompt a directory browse when command is run

The last special argument is particular useful when you need to pass different arguments every time you want to run that command. In fact you will be prompted to insert the arguments before the command will be executed.
An example of what you will see, after defining in the argument field a string like this:

-V %(ask:extra arguments:simple) “%(ask:source:BROWSE_FILE)” “%(ask:destination:BROWSE_FILE)”

P.S. I’ve also put together a couple of real life examples on how to use the new run command.
1. Run from the workspace panel: http://www.sephiroth.it/_temp/captivate/as2api/
2. Run from the user tools: http://www.sephiroth.it/_temp/captivate/swfmill/

Due to the recents problems with the CVS on sourceforge I decided to move the remote repository under SubVersion

You can see the subversion tree via web here:
http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/sepy/

For SVN checkout now you should use:
svn co https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/sepy sepy

Every time there will be a commit on the repository an email will be sent to the sepy-cvs mailing list, the archive is here:
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=44804

In the latest update I finally decided to do a sort of packages reorganization of the source code, also for a better management in the future. This will happen in 1.5.2RC19.
So please forget me for all the possible errors (btw, i will try to test this release a lot before release it)
What’s new:

The “compare files” dialog has been changed in the last drop. It still uses the GNU diffutil for compare files and directories, but the result visualization is changed.

First of all now you can both compare files or whole directories. When compare 2 files the results will be displayed in the main editor window in a different way than before. The 2 files will be shown in the same editor window, divided into 2 columns. The left column represents the 1st file, the right column represents the 2nd file.

All the lines with a difference will be underlined with different colors (based on the type of the difference). You can see a demonstration of the result of a comparison here:

The lenght of each column can de defined in the compare files dialog itself (default value if 80, for a better result visualization)

The “compare directories” tab will compare every file (of every directories if the “recursive” checkbox will be checked) of 2 different directories and will display the results into a list in the same dialog. Then you can choose which file to be compared or just open one of the shown files.

The “Exclude pattern” field will exclude all those files which match that pattern. For example, writing “*.py[cw]” will exclude all .pyw and .pyc files

Also the wxPython and Scintilla versions have been updated

In the latest build I’ve added 2 new features.
The first one it’s a modification of the”Flush” menu, where you can find now 2 new menu items: “Delete ASO files” and “Delete ASO and test movie”.
Those items are the same you can find in the Flash 8 command menu, and they did the same thing.

The second addition can be found at the bottom of “Insert menu”.
Stickies let you place sticky notes on your SEPY desktop. You can type notes to yourself, keep track of a to-do list, and anything else you would do with paper notes. Your notes will float above SEPY, so you can see both your note and what you are working on. When you close SEPY all the stickies will be saved, and when you log back on, your notes are still there.

If you’re using the new Workspace panel with SVN enabled for your projects and your SVN tunnel requires svn+ssh, you need to make this patch in order to use the SVN feature correctly. (Probably you are receiving an error such as: “Can’t create tunnel”)

First download and install TortoiseSVN
Once installed open with a text editor the svn configuration file: “C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Dati applicazioni\Subversion\config”
Find the section “[tunnels]” and add at the end of that section a new entry such as this one:

ssh = "C:\\Program Files\\TortoiseSVN\\bin\\TortoisePlink.exe"

Save the file and try again in SEPY to update of commit your files with SVN.. now it should work

.smtasc files
Now you can create profiles using the MTASC panel ( under Flush -> compile with MTASC) and save them as .smtasc files.
Add them to your project; when you will click on them the mtasc panel will be automatically opened with all settings loaded for that profile.

New testing features
Flex 2.0 and swfmill support. This means that when you open a .swfml or .mxml file you will have the autocompletion enabled.

swfmill

flex 2.0

Thanks to Andrea Gavana who recently released a couple of really nice components for the wxPython framework there are significant changes in this X-mas build of SEPY.
Built-in notebook has been replaced by the new NotebookCtrl which now supports drag and srop on tabs, themes and coloured text on tabs and finally the close button on document’s tab.

Another feature added is the possibility to have all the left panel in floating windows (like in Flash IDE).
You can “float” every panel by using the context menu over the panel’s labels.

Download the new drop from: http://sourceforge.net/project/…release_id=380394

Abbreviations work like code shortcuts. In other words you can assign a list of words (abbreviations) which will be replaced by their expanded text, using a keyboard shortcut

Manage Abbreviations:
Select from menu: Insert/Abbreviation../Manage

A dialog window will open where you can add and remove your abbreviations.
Now click on “Add” and in the upper list will appear a new row with only “new” written into.
Click on that item and give to your abbreviation a name. This name will be used later while you will write into your documents.
In the right column, instead, write the text which will replace your abbreviation, and use the “|” char in order to tell SEPY where to put the caret after the abbreviation will be inserted.

For example, when I wrote XML files I’m used to write many times < ![CDATA[....]]> and for this reason I’ve created an abbreviation which let me to just write “< !". Then, when I expand the abbreviation (menu Insert/Abbreviation../Expand) my new text is " Thus, my abbreviation name is “< !", while its Expansion is "

Into the abbreviations menu you have:
- Expand (which substitue the current phrase with its expansion)
- Insert (which will show you the list of avail abbreviations, double click on one of them to insert into the document current position)
- Manage (open the abbreviation manage dialog)