A month ago, for 3.5 and 3.6, I added a test file by Westley Martínez (note accent on i) and then his name into Misc/NEWS and idlelib/NEWS.txt. As a result, the latter will not display when the button on About IDLE is clicked. Instead, a UnicodeDecodeError is sent to stderr. I will add a test for the About box.

Larry, there is a slight reversion in 3.5.2rc that I think should be fixed: idlelib/NEWS.txt will not display from About IDLE dialog because it had a couple of non-ascii chars. idle_news-35.diff has the full patch. A minimal fix for 3.5.2 final would consist of changing 'ascii' to 'utf-8' in idlelib/aboutDialog.py and the recoding the 2 characters in NEWS. Testing changes in the other 2 files could wait.

Since I don't know how you want to do this now, I have not pushed anything yet.

New changeset 45d4cea97b04 by Benjamin Peterson in branch '2.7':
fix idle about dialog bpo-27365
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/45d4cea97b04

If the diff is literally changing two lines, I'll accept it. Guido relaxed the rules for IDLE changes. If it breaks something it's on *your* head ;-)

Please just check it in normally. Either I'm going to use hg to cherry-pick the changes for 3.5.2 final, or I'm going to have to apply patches manually anyway. Either way an hg checkin is fine.

Please check in this minimal change *as a separate checkin* from the larger changes, if you're committing the other changes any time soon.

I should mention that I have separate 3.5 and 3.6 patches because I know that the merge will not work.

I was wondering if splitting the patch would be better. Shelve makes it easy.

New changeset 783dfd77e4c1 by Terry Jan Reedy in branch '3.5':
Issue bpo-27365: Allow non-ascii in idlelib/NEWS.txt - minimal part for 3.5.2.
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/783dfd77e4c1

New changeset b8926908d2a0 by Terry Jan Reedy in branch 'default':
Issue bpo-27365: Merge minimal part.
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/b8926908d2a0

783dfd77e4c1 is the one to pick for 3.5, then null merge if you merge to 3.6.

New changeset d5ee1e5c1ac0 by Terry Jan Reedy in branch '3.5':
Issue bpo-27365: Allow non-ascii in idlelib/NEWS.txt, for contributor names.
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/d5ee1e5c1ac0

New changeset e7ecad98a785 by Terry Jan Reedy in branch 'default':
Issue bpo-27365: temporary rename
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/e7ecad98a785

New changeset a4aa45859b5c by Terry Jan Reedy in branch 'default':
Issue bpo-27365: partial merge
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/a4aa45859b5c

New changeset 54dde0cb10f9 by Terry Jan Reedy in branch 'default':
Issue bpo-27365: revert temporary rename
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/54dde0cb10f9

New changeset be0dec826982 by Terry Jan Reedy in branch 'default':
Issue bpo-27365: add chunk
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/be0dec826982

New changeset 3a122d0e4187 by Terry Jan Reedy in branch 'default':
Issue bpo-27365: add chunk
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/3a122d0e4187

New changeset 49323bb44229 by Terry Jan Reedy in branch 'default':
Issue bpo-27365: revert temporary rename
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/49323bb44229

Because of the case conflict I did not notice soon enough, the rest of the patch and merge did not go well and I got this

test test_idle crashed -- Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "F:\Python\dev\36\lib\test\libregrtest\runtest.py", line 180, in runtest_inner
    test_runner()
  File "F:\Python\dev\36\lib\test\libregrtest\runtest.py", line 178, in test_runner
    raise Exception("errors while loading tests")
Exception: errors while loading tests

I suspect it is a problem with textView/textview, so I will temporarily disable test files to find the culprit.

New changeset 33769ce40b47 by Terry Jan Reedy in branch 'default':
Issue bpo-27365: Finish merge so tests pass.
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/33769ce40b47

Suspicion wrong. idle_test and hand tests pass.

Larry, I am done with this. I left it open until you are also.

Is this dance with renaming forever?

No, it ends with the last 3.5 maintenance release in about 6 months. When I did it right, as in bpo-27245, which was otherwise a clean single file merge, there was no problem and it took at most an extra 30 seconds. I know what I did wrong this time, starting with not writing down the steps needed, and in which order, for a much more complicated merge.

You speak confidently, for a guy who hasn't seen any sort of schedule from the 3.5 RM. :-O

After 3.6 comes out, I expect 3.5 to get one more "bug fix" release. And *then* it will transition to "security fixes only" mode. Six months is the absolute minimum, and I'd expect it to be longer than that.

As a practical matter, I have no plans to backport except in exceptional cases. If the regression had only affected 3.6, I would have left 2.7 and 3.5 alone.

New changeset cbc6407fa393 by Terry Jan Reedy in branch '2.7':
Issue bpo-27365: Add blank lines. to 2.7 test_editmenu
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/cbc6407fa393

If this is fixed, and resolved, why is it still open? Closing.

New changeset 30e563e2702e by Terry Jan Reedy in branch '3.5':
Issue bpo-27365: Allow non-ascii in idlelib/NEWS.txt - minimal part for 3.5.2.
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/30e563e2702e