Change python cursor in IDLE

Question

I am using IDLE and Python 2.7.1.1.

I want to change the cursor from the blinking line (|) to the cursor of the Linux terminal when using IDLE. How can I do this?

Answer 1

I don't know what you mean by the 'the cursor of the Linux terminal'. Is it necessarily the same for all Linux text programs?

In any case, tcl/tk Text widgets have one alternative insertion cursor, a blinking block. (The insertion cursor is different from the mouse cursor.) It can be seen by running this code (root.mainloop() might be needed if not running from IDLE).

import tkinter as tk
root = tk.Tk()
text = tk.Text(root, blockcursor=True)
text.insert('insert', 'cursor appearance test')
text.pack()
text.focus_set()

If you backspace the cursor, the block blinks on top of and hides one of the characters. To me, this is both ugly and misleading, in that insertion is always between characters and does not replace the char under the block.

However, if you want to experiment, you can edit idlelib/editor.py (or /EditorWindow.py before 3.6). Find the part of EditorWindow.init that starts

text_options = {  # line 114 in 3.6

and add

    'blockcursor': True,

to the options dictionary.