Spyder missing Object Inspector - python

I just installed Anaconda and running Spyder I cannot find the Object Inspector. Hitting Ctrl+I has no effect and in the View/Panes menu there is no item Object Inspector.
I have seen videos and tutorials that show the Object Inspector. What is happening?

The "Object Inspector" is now called "Help" (from Spyder version 3.0 onwards); see https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/spyderlib/pF7KmSKDFXc . However, the Ctrl-I shortcut has not been changed, so I'm not sure what's happening with that.

go to preferences > Help and enable the Automatic connections for Editor and restart the Spyder
This worked for me!!

Although it's given in the tutorials but I'll explain.
1) Object Inspector is now known as Help.
2) I'm using Spyder 3.6, here go to Tools-->Preferences-->Help-->Check on Editor in Automatic Connections
3) Select your parameter and Ctrl+I
That'll do it.

I had the same problem. I found the help and then discovered that I got a message saying No Documentation. I tried changing the setting from Rich Text to Plain Text and for some reason that worked and I'm able to use the Object Inspector.

Since they changed "Object Inspector" to "Help", as Jitse Niesen says, they might have changed the shortcut too. In my Mac version the shortcut for "Help" is Shift+Cmd+H so the combination you are looking for is probably Ctrl+H.

On mac using Spyder 3.3.1 run from Anaconda.
Cmd + I was not working for me at first to show the object inspector on the right pane for help on a particular function. So I typed in Cmd + , (which is to access preferences panel in any app on Mac), and went down to "Help" on the left side.
Then, I checked the boxes for "Editor" and "IPython Console" under the description that says
"This pane can automatically show an object's help information after a left parenthesis is written next to it. Below you can decide to which plugin you want to connect it to turn on this feature."
After checking these boxes and pressing OK, Cmd + I still did not work for getting the object information.
I restarted Spyder, closing it and reopening it from Anaconda navigator.
Now Cmd + I works and shows the information for whatever function I click on.
Hope this helps someone. I'm still not quite sure what happened here (since those checkboxes were for the left parenthesis function), but I still thought that sharing the steps will be useful to some people.

In Windows, Ctrl+Shift+H worked after making changes to preferences as suggested by Ibrahem

Go to preferences->Help and tick the option of showing object info on Editor , then ctrl+I will work with any object

One way to go about this is to go to View > Panes > Online Help. Then in the search box insert the module or package like so (sklearn.preprocessing.Imputer) and you will have all the docs related to the package.(**Shortest way: click on package....then Cmd + i )
Alternatively, right clicking the Object in the editor, select Go to Definition
Third way, in your console, type help(your class here) like help(Imputer) or just help() to get the interactive console then type your package there (sklearn.preprocessing.Imputer`).
Hope this help someone.

After pressing Ctrl+H , a help window will come in that in [Source] dropdown select Console

Please check the spelling of your command, if you type wrong spelling it wont display the help

Note that in Spyder version 3.2.4 under Tools>Preferences>Help>Automatic Connections it clearly now states: "This pane can automatically show an object's help information after a left parenthesis is written next to it. Below you can decide to which plugin you want to connect it to turn on this feature." Then you can select Editor and/or IPython Console.
When I tried this, placing a left parenthesis before the (term is the only way I could get the help to bring up an example and a definition.

Nothing worked from above. I can debug objects easy in Visual Studio Code, but I can not do it in Spyder 3.2.8 installed with Anaconda 5.2 for Windows. In IPython console during debugging I use following.
To inspect an object:
vars(my_object)
To list class objects:
[obj.name for obj in gc.get_objects() if isinstance(obj, my_class)]
This solution solved the problem and shows objects in Variable Explorer.
https://gitter.im/spyder-ide/public?at=5b69bac8e9ab53770ca018d0
Question:
How can I explore objects during debugging like I explore variables?
In IPython consle I use vars(my_object), this is a prompt way. I want a GUI way for Object like Variable explorer.
I want a GUI way for Object like Variable explorer.
Answer:
As a matter of fact, Spyder has one, exactly like the Variable Explorer: it's called...the Variable Explorer! If you can't see them, make sure Exclude unsupported data types is not selected under the "Gear" menu in the top right of the pane.
Most arbitrary objects should work, although there may occasionally be a few bugs for more esoteric ones. Even better support will be coming in Spyder 4.

Just left click on the top right corner, beside the close tab of editor and below the working directory tab
I tried it, and it successfully worked.

Related

Why doesn't highlighted text show what data type the highlighted text is?

I'm using pyton with VSC and ran into a problem while watching a tutorial; when highlighting a number in brackets, the data type doesn't show up, while it does in the tutorial. IE: when higlighting 4.5 in
print(4.5), it should say 4.5: float in a popup, but that doesn't happen. Can anybody help me?
Visual Studio Code does not have automatic intellisense, you need to download a language specific extention to use it.
Steps to download:
open the extentions menu located on the left toolbar (ctrl-shift-x).
search for python.
click install on the top result.
(optional) restart VSC, I don't know if it is necessary, but better safe then sorry.
I hope this fixes your problem :) .
Edit: I just checked, and after installing the extention will say something along the lines of 'reload to enable extention', if it does not, it doesn't need it. Otherwise, just click the text that says that.

Spyder-IDE how to leave argument inspection open

Lets say I type the following in Spyder-IDE:
min(
Spyder will then automatically open the arguments list of the function min and give me:
Arguments
min(iterable[, key=func])
I find this very helpful but Spyder closes this list after 1.5sec. I would like to have this still open after 1.5sec. In fact it would be perfect if this list remained open while I type the arguments since it helps me to see what I need to specify for a correct function call. As far as I can remember, other IDEs such as Eclipse or QtCreator support this. Is this also possible with Spyder?
In the preferences section under Editor I found:
Highlight occurences after 1500ms
Changing this value has however no effect and it seems that this is not the value which I want to change.
If you're okay with having a "side" window, what you can do is go to Tools > Preferences > Object Inspector, and check off the Editor, Python Console, and IPython Console boxes, then click Apply/OK. Then navigate to View > Panes and click Object Inspector. It should pop up as another window next to your main text window. It's not exactly inline, but it will give you the same info (plus more).
I'm not sure if you have to check off all of "Editor, Python Console, and IPython Console", but it didn't work for me when I just selected Editor for some reason...
I'm on Spyder 2.7, btw.
HTH!

How to copy text from IDLE?

Is there a way to copy text out of Python IDLE on a Mac? When I highlight text and copy then past into a text editor, I get the same text pasted. It is some of the first text I start with in IDLE. None of the other text will copy out.
From The Things I Hate About IDLE That I Wish Someone Would Fix (from 2011):
1.2) NEW FEATURE: Auto-Copy-On-Highlight
Once we get rid of being able to move the cursor off the last line, that opens a new opportunity to implement an automatic copy-on-highlight feature that many terminal and IRC client programs implement. Since this text is read-only, the only reason a person has for highlighting it is to copy it (they can’t delete it.) As soon as the user highlights text in the shell window, it is copied to the clipboard.
Looks like the best you can do is save as a .py file. Open that in a text editor and continue working in IDLE. With each save, the text editor will refresh with all updates, including errors. At least TextWrangler will.
Sometimes in things like a linux terminal you can't do a normal copy and paste, try holding Command/Control + Shift + C after highlighting things and seeing if that works, since you're on mac i'm not sure if it would be the Command or Control key so try both
EDIT: There is an apple discussion about the exact same thing. They discuss going into the options menu, then into configuration and navigating to the keys section. Then you use a built in key-set, their suggestion is using IDLE Classic Mac.
I cannot tell from your description exactly what you did and what happened. But I can recommend that you upgrade to 3.4.4 or 3.5.1 (or 2.7.11 for 2.7 users). Among other improvements, they all contain a patch to make right-click for context menu work on Mac Aqua. This was issue 24801 on the CPython bug tracker.
If there is still an actual problem on Mac, I would like to know so it can be fixed.

How do I make pyCharm stop hiding (unfold) my Python imports?

Every time I open a Python file PyCharm will hide all imports and shows:
import ...
within the editor.
I have to manually unfold it to see the imports. Where do I find the setting to undo auto-hiding of import statements?
As this question may be useful for people who also are not looking for the term "code folding", I'll make my comment an answer.
As extracted from IntelliJ IDE Web Help, but also worked on PyCharm CE 3.4.1:
Open the IDE Settings (File > Settings, or Ctrl+Alt+S).
Under the "Editor" node, click "General" and then "Code Folding". The "Code Folding" page is displayed.
In the "Collapse by default list", select the check boxes to the left of the code constructs you want to be displayed collapsed. So here you can uncheck "Imports".
Apply changes.
The image below shows what it looks like:
Actually in pycharm 2016.1 it's Editor -> General -> Code Folding

GEdit/Python execution plugin?

I'm just starting out learning python with GEdit plus various plugins as my IDE.
Visual Studio/F# has a feature which permits the highlighting on a piece of text in the code window which then, on a keypress, gets executed in the F# console.
Is there a similar facility/plugin which would enable this sort of behaviour for GEdit/Python? I do have various execution type plugins (Run In Python,Better Python Console) but they don't give me this particular behaviour - or at least I'm not sure how to configure them to give me this. I find it useful because in learning python, I have some test code I want to execute particular individual lines or small segments of code (rather then a complete file) to try and understand what they are doing (and the copy/paste can get a bit tiresome)
... or perhaps there is a better way to do code exploration?
Many thx
Simon
Yes, you use "external tools plugin"
http://live.gnome.org/Gedit/ToolLauncherPlugin
As an example,
Edit > Preferences
Plugins
Tick "External Tools"
Close the Preferences Window
Tools > Manage External Tools
Click the "Add new too" icon in the bottom left
Name it "Execute Highlighted Python Code"
give it a keyboard shortcut
change the input combo box to : "highlighted selection"
change the output to : "Display in Bottom Pane"
In the editor window for the tool, replace everything with :
.
#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys
result = eval(sys.stdin.read())
print expression, "=>", result, type(result)
.
If you wish to see the result of entire .py file, you can put this code in your new created external tool window
#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys
exec(sys.stdin.read())
and change the Input to Current document.
For python, You can use "external tools plugin":
#!/bin/sh
python3 "$GEDIT_CURRENT_DOCUMENT_PATH"
Option of external tool:
Save: Current Document
Input: Current Document
Output: Display in bottom panel
Language: Python or Python3
Don't forget the quotes around $GEDIT_CURRENT_DOCUMENT_PATH....
To answer your second question, and hopefully guide you in a direction you'll be happier with, I think you ought to consider trying some different editors. There are many with more powerful code exploration features than GEdit has. Check out this post:
What IDE to use for Python?
I installed iPython console in gedit and do most of my simple scripting in it, but gedit is a very simple editor, so it'll not have some advance feature like an IDE
But if you want code exploring, or auto completion, I recommend a real IDE like Eclipse.
If you just want a editor, KomodoEdit is fine.
What I do is keep a file called python_temp.py. I have a shortcut to it in my dock. I use it as a scratch pad. Whenever I want to quickly run some code, I copy the code, click the shortcut in the doc, paste in the text and hit f5 to run. Quick, easy, simple, flexible.
I think what you're looking for is http://live.gnome.org/Gedit/Plugins/BetterPythonConsole.
You hit F5 and it runs the code in your file in a IDLE-like console. I don't know if it can only run selected code. (I don't think it can) but you can always copy the needed code in a new window and run it from there.
Have a look through the plugin list for other interesting stuff: http://live.gnome.org/Gedit/Plugins
The closest to a decent IDE...
Install gedit-developer-plugins (through synaptic || apt-get) and don't forget to enable (what you need) from gEdit's plugins (Edit->Preferences [tab] plugins) and happy coding

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