Syntax highlighting and autocomplete for Python in textport

Wishlist and RFEs
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The current state of textport is that everything is in single color and there is no autocomplete. Lack of this simple/standard features makes working in textport unnecessarily hard. It almost feels like you are working with some weird subset of Python and not Python itself.

Because the interpreter/REPL can not be accessed from outside of the TouchDesigner (unless you are willing to hack the life out of it), using an external interpreter or REPL with these features is not possible. Because the main interpreter can not be replaced, it’s also not possible to use different interpreter/REPL with different capabilities. Also, I believe this is the result of textport’s current implementation, the interactive options like IPython / bpython can not be used under the textport (They quit/crash immediately.)

Matching the features from IDLE would be a great starting point.

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Thanks for the feedback. We’re definitely interested in making improvements to the python experience in TouchDesigner but it is an ongoing process.

We’ve currently got a prototype in our next official that supports color codes embedded in the python output to give colored text.

Auto-complete is something we’d love to do, but it is a little trickier. Recently we’ve been focused on providing header files for all of the built in TouchDesigner classes so that when you can get better auto-complete when working with external editors like VSCode.

Hope that answers your question a bit and we’ll keep your feedback on hand as we continue on these projects.