PyCon intro tutorial prep/OSX text editor

Installing TextWrangler

On OSX, a good text editor is TextWrangler.

To download and install TextWrangler:

• Download the latest version of TextWrangler from http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/download.html (now BBEdit)
• Open the downloaded file from your Downloads directory or the Download bar in your web browser
• Drag the icon (it's a lasso shaped like a "W") to your Dock for easy access

To run TextWrangler:

• Double-click the TextWrangler icon from your Dock.

Configure TextWrangler to indent with spaces

• Start up TextWrangler, and click TextWrangler -> Preferences -> Editor Defaults.
• Check the "Auto-expand tabs" checkbox.
• Make sure the "Tab width" is set to 4 in the box below.
• Restart TextWrangler for change to take place.

That's it! Now, you can press Tab to indent your code, and that indentation will actually be made of spaces. We do this because Python doesn't like it when we mix tabs and spaces.

Success!

Now you have an editor that you can use to open any text file, including Python programs.

« Back to the main prep page