Hi Terry,

I will try my best to answer your questions.

To update you, I decided to completely uninstall the ActiveState frameworks from my Mac. This brought me back to the dreaded Apple version of Tcl/Tk 8.5.9 with the IDLE warning about it. At this point Autocomplete and Call Tips worked again. If I initialized a list and then typed a_list. then the pop up menu would appear for the methods associated with list. If I typed a_list.append( then the Call Tip with the docstring information for list.append would appear. (I didn't try some of the other methods that we talk about in the questions as I was not aware of them at the time).

I then downloaded a new installer from ActiveState for Tcl/Tk 8.5.18 and ran the install. I tested IDLE again, and at this point the Autocomplete pop up menu does not display, and the Call Tips no longer appear when I open a methods parenthesis.

Questions:
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"Alessandro, you said <Control-Key-space> works, <KeyRelease-period> does not.  How about <Key-Tab> and <KeyRelease-(back)slash>. The latter pair work within path strings when the preceding chars begin a path that exist on your system."

- <Control-Key-space>
If I type a_list. and then <Control-Key-space> no pop up menu appears, however when I press the Up or Down arrow keys, it cycles through the methods available for that object. The Autocompletes display inline, one at a time and not as a popup.

To expand on this, if I press <Control-Key-space> at the prompt of the IDLE shell or at a blank line in an editor screen the Up and Down arrow keys will cycle through any builtin functions, keyword arguments (mostly errors), or declared variables available, plus True and False.

- <KeyRelease-period>
This has no effect. There is no popup window, and unlike with <Control-Key-space> the arrow keys move the cursor around the screen and do not cycle through any of the Autocomplete options.

- <Key-Tab>
For the sake of brevity, <Key-Tab> works the same as <Control-Key-space> does after a dot, so a_list. and <Key-Tab> lets the Up and Down arrow keys cycle through available methods.

- <KeyRelease-(back)slash>
Within a path string, <KeyRelease-(back)slash> allows for the cycling through of the directories at that level of the path using the Up and Down arrow keys. As with the others, no popup menu is visible when pressing <KeyRelease-(back)slash>. (That is a handy tip I didn't know about... Thanks!)

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"Alessandro, you could test by making a backup of configextensions.def and removing 'Release' for 'period'."

- When I do this and restart IDLE, the only difference in behavior is that placing a period after an object, a_list., acts like pressing <Key-Tab> or <Control-Key-space> did prior to the change. It allows for the cycling through of methods with the arrow keys, but no popup menu.

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"Alessandro, you said <KeyRelease-parenleft> does not work.  How abut <Control-Key-backslash> (after '(') to open?  Does <KeyRelease-parenright> close properly?"

- <KeyRelease-parenleft>
Correct. There is no Call Tips popup when I open a parenthesis after an object method.

- <Control-Key-backslash>
This has no effect.

- <KeyRelease-parenright>
I am not sure what your question means. It works as a normal close parenthesis would in any text editor. If you mean does <KeyRelease-parenright> close the Call Tips popup properly, then I can't say as there is no Call Tip popup displaying.

One thing to note, something is happening with <KeyRelease-0> after a closed parenthesis, it is just that nothing is visible. So if I enter a_list.append() and then press and release the 0 key and then press the Up or Down arrow key, the cursor is frozen in place for the first press. Then is starts to move with subsequent presses. It seems like IDLE is trying to get the Call Tip, but no window appears to display the information.

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"For both boxes, clicking on the box should also close. Does it?
What about Edit -> Show Completions and Edit -> Show calltips for opening?"

- The popup boxes do not display at all. Going through the answers I have given so far, it seems like IDLE is accessing the information that it needs to for Autocomplete (and possibly Call Tips, though I cannot see it as it is never displayed on screen), it is just that the display boxes do not display. Maybe the problem is not Autocomplete or Call Tips at all, but in the module that is called to display the information that they return, or a command in that module was renamed or deprecated?

- Edit -> Show Completions
After reverting back to the backup version of config-extensions.def, this has the same behavior as <Key-Tab> and <Control-Key-space> have. Up and Down Arrow allows cycling through of methods, but there is no popup window visible.

- Edit -> Show calltips
This has no effect, whether it is with an open parenthesis or after the parenthesis has been closed.

Thank you for the reply and trying to find a solution.

~ A