NEWS patches should be omitted from submitted .diff or .patch files because a) NEWS is so volatile that merge conflicts applying the .diff are likely; b) NEWS is different between versions, so that forward merge conflicts are possible (usual for Idle items, so I apply them separately) and b) committers tend to rewrite then anyway.  I will later prepare and separately commit one entry for this issue.

ACKS is more stable within and between versions, so including a acks patch is ok.  But then the patch must be prepared for 3.4 and 2.7 specifically, and I want to know ahead of time if there will be a 3.4 to 3.5 or 3.5 to 3.6 merge conflict.  You can include it or leave it out (easier).

I tested both the .patch and diff in msg248849.  When putting code or diffs in messages, please include function/class/method names or lineno.  With this patch, SubList always return a list of one item.  Note that we can always use frame.f_locals, whether it is or is not f_globals.

I am not exactly sure what you meant by your your last question, but it lead me to the answer.  When a tree item with + is clicked, the corresponding GetSubList method is called. What we want FrameTreeItem.GetSubList to do, instead of returning a list of (now 1) VariablesTreeItem, is to return what VariablesTreeItem.GetSubList would (when clicked subequently).  Replace most of the body of the former (FrameTI.GSL) with the body of the latter (VarTI.GSL), with 'self.object' replaced by 'frame.f_locals'.  Class VariablesTreeItem will then be obsolete.