IDE for python (something with a mix of KDE and emacs)

Question

I am using a text editor (Sublime Text) for programming in Python. The latest version is pretty cool, but I was wondering if there are any (free) IDEs available for Python which meet the following two criteria (the ones I care about)

1. Gives auto-suggestions for the names/methods, like in Visual Studio or KDE (at least in C++ version) whenever you start typing the name of the class. Sublime text keeps a track of the words which have been typed in the windows open and does suggests, but it returns all the words typed as suggestions.

2. Indentation lock after 4 spaces. Emacs has this very cool property where you can lock the indention to four spaces and no matter how many times you press tab and space it doesn't goe beyond those spaces, for a given block. This is nifty when doing ctrl + c and ctrl + v as just with one tab, the indentation is taken care of. I believe this can be done in KDE also.

I used KDE for C++ development and it was pretty cool. Additional plus point: if I can define my own visual environment... :P like plugins..

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

You can give Eclipse a try. It has a plugin named PyDev which lets you work in python. Have a look here Python Development with PyDev and Eclipse

Answer 2

Keep in mind that #1 is not really possible in Python. Some tools take a stab at it, but there are always significant limitations. Consider this code:

if foo():
   bar = "quux"
else:
   bar = [42]

Now when you type bar. on the following line, what methods should be suggested? Those for strings, or those for lists? And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Answer 3

There are some decent IDEs out there in Aptana and PyCharm. The latter costs money, but it's still a great Python IDE.

Geany is a text-based IDE which isn't as powerful as the other two, but it can do some suggestions. I'm not 100% sure about the space enforcing though.