Assuming no errors, the results will appear in the Shell window. Save your file somewhere with any name you choose, and a '.py' extension to the file name.Ĭlick 'Run', click 'Run Module' (or, F5).

the idle will be activated automatically.Īfter you launch idle from the command line (make sure idle shell window has focus), click File, click 'New File'.

This indicates an automation workflow is running.

The only side-effect will be that while it's running, your menu bar will have a spinning gear over in the tray area next to the clock. It's now available (as soon as spotlight indexes it) via all the normal methods.Save your automation (I called mine 'IDLE' and put it in the Applications folder, to make it easy).Enter the terminal command in the parameters box that appears.In the actions column, find 'Run Shell Script' and double-click it, or drag it to the workflow area on the right.Make sure 'Actions' is selected in the gray bar, upper left.Using spotlight, or in the Utilities folder, open 'Automator'.On my Mac right now (early 2016), running python 2.7.10, it is 'idle2.7' You'll need to know the terminal command to open your version of IDLE.As mentioned by other commentators, this probably isn't necessary for Python 3, as it creates a shortcut automatically, and some hand-installed versions have tools to do this automatically. One way to run IDLE from spotlight or an icon in the Applications folder is to build a quick Automation for it.

I think the shell command is python -m idlelib.idle Then the Python shell opens up for you to edit Then you will see a little rocket icon show up as IDLE loads When you open up a new terminal window, just type in idle For a more Mac-like way of opening it, you'll have to create a small app or shortcut to launch /usr/bin/idle for you (an exercise left to the reader). The quickest option is to open the Terminal utility and type 'idle' at the prompt. In the stock Mac OS X python installation, idle is found in /usr/bin, which is not (easily) accessible from Finder and not indexed by Spotlight.

Install python 2.7 mac