Ok, I realize this may be an extremely nuanced question, but it has been bugging me for a while. I like the simple scripting interface of IDLE, but it keeps crashing on me when: (1) I am coding on an external monitor and (2) I type the parenthesis button, "(". IDLE never crashes for me for any other reason than this very specific situation. Strangely, if I have an external monitor connected, but I have the IDLE dev window on my laptop's main screen, I have ZERO problems with crashing. (???) I have lost a substantial amount of code due to this problem.
I am running on Mac OSX Version 10.11.3 and I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015) Any thoughts would be appreciated!
Ok, answering my own question. Per the recomendation of Андрей, I reviewed the notes and comments here: http://bugs.python.org/issue16177 I did some experimentation and figured out a work-around to avoid this problem. The problem only occurs when you are coding in an external monitor AND when the "Arrangement" of the external monitor is set as being higher (or elevated) relative to the primary monitor. Specifically, it occurs when the IDLE development window is totally or near-totally in a space on the secondary screen that would be considered "North" of the top edge of the primary screen. Thus, the patch is to reconfigure your "Arrangement" settings on your Mac so that the monitors are systematically aligned in a near-horizontal fashion. This may make things feel less natural, but it will fix the problem. That being said, I have no idea what the root cause of the problem is. I'm just glad to finally have this figured out. Hope this helps at least one other person.
I found a fix! One that doesn't require changing monitor settings.
In IDLE:
Options Menu > Configure Extensions > CallTips > set to FALSE
Then restart.
Took much research to find that super simple solution... the problem is caused not by an error in IDLE but by an error in the mac's Tcl/Tk code when calltips are called in external monitors above the default monitor.
Typing '(' after a function name should bring up a calltip giving the signature of the function if the function is currently known. Functions can be made known by occasionally running your code. We recentlyly discovered that some combinations of Mac OSX or MacOS and tcl/tk require an addition of one line to idlelib/calltip_w.py (3.6+) or idlelib/CallTipWindow.py (3.5-). Issue 34275
self.label.pack() # Line 74
tw.update_idletasks() # ADD THIS LINE!
tw.lift()
Without this, the calltip does not appear. I don't know if this also prevents any of the crashes that people have reported. If the above does not work, please remove _idletasks and let me know in a comment.
