eric is a free

integrated development environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source code editor, build automation tools ...

(IDE) used for

computer programming Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programming involves tasks such as anal ...

. Since it is a full featured IDE, it provides by default all necessary tools needed for the writing of code and for the professional

management Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a Government agency, government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includ ...

of a software project. eric is written in the

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

and its primary use is for developing

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

written in Python. It is usable for development of any combination of Python 3 or Python 2,

Qt 5 Qt (pronounced "cute") is cross-platform software for creating graphical user interfaces as well as cross-platform applications that run on various software and hardware platforms such as Linux, Windows, macOS, Android or embedded systems wit ...

or Qt 4 and

PyQt PyQt is a Python binding of the cross-platform GUI toolkit Qt, implemented as a Python plug-in. PyQt is free software developed by the British firm Riverbank Computing. It is available under similar terms to Qt versions older than 4.5; this m ...

5 or PyQt 4 projects, on

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

and Microsoft Windows platforms.

License, price and distribution

eric is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3 or later and is thereby

Free Software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

. This means in general terms that the

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the w ...

of eric can be studied, changed and improved by anyone, that eric can be run for any purpose by anyone and that eric - and any changes or improvements that may have been made to it - can be redistributed by anyone to anyone as long as the license is not changed (

copyleft Copyleft is the legal technique of granting certain freedoms over copies of copyrighted works with the requirement that the same rights be preserved in derivative works. In this sense, ''freedoms'' refers to the use of the work for any purpose ...

). eric can be downloaded at

SourceForge SourceForge is a web service that offers software consumers a centralized online location to control and manage open-source software projects and research business software. It provides source code repository hosting, bug tracking, mirroring ...

and installed manually with a python installer script. Most major Linux distributions include eric in their

software repositories A software repository, or repo for short, is a storage location for software packages. Often a table of contents is also stored, along with metadata. A software repository is typically managed by source control or repository managers. Package ...

, so when using such Linux distributions eric can be obtained and installed automatically by using the

package manager A package manager or package-management system is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for a computer in a consistent manner. A package manager deals wi ...

of the particular distribution. Additionally, the author offers access to the

via a public

Mercurial Mercurial is a distributed revision control tool for software developers. It is supported on Microsoft Windows and Unix-like systems, such as FreeBSD, macOS, and Linux. Mercurial's major design goals include high performance and scalability, d ...

repository.

Characteristics

eric is written in Python and uses the

Python bindings for the Qt

GUI toolkit The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inst ...

. By design, eric acts as a front end for several programs, for example the

QScintilla Scintilla is a free, open source library that provides a text editing component function, with an emphasis on advanced features for source code editing. Features Scintilla supports many features to make code editing easier in addition to syn ...

editor widget.

Features

The key features of eric 6 are: *Source code editing: ** Unlimited number of

editors Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, photographic, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, or ...

** Configurable window layout ** Configurable

syntax highlighting Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors that are used for programming, scripting, or markup languages, such as HTML. The feature displays text, especially source code, in different colours and fonts according to the category of terms ...

** Sourcecode

autocompletion Autocomplete, or word completion, is a feature in which an application predicts the rest of a word a user is typing. In Android and iOS smartphones, this is called predictive text. In graphical user interfaces, users can typically press the tab ...

** Sourcecode calltips ** Sourcecode folding **

Brace matching Bracket matching, also known as brace matching or parentheses matching, is a syntax highlighting feature of certain text editors and integrated development environments that highlights matching sets of brackets (square brackets, curly brackets, or ...

** Error highlighting ** Advanced search functionality including project wide search and replace ** Integrated

class browser {{Unreferenced, date=July 2010 A class browser is a feature of an integrated development environment (IDE) that allows the programmer to browse, navigate, or visualize the structure of object-oriented programming code. History Most modern clas ...

** Integrated profiling and

code coverage In computer science, test coverage is a percentage measure of the degree to which the source code of a program is executed when a particular test suite is run. A program with high test coverage has more of its source code executed during testing, ...

support *GUI designing: ** Integration of

Qt Designer Qt Creator is a cross-platform C++, JavaScript and QML integrated development environment (IDE) which simplifies GUI application development. It is part of the SDK for the Qt GUI application development framework and uses the Qt API, which e ...

, a

Graphical user interface builder A graphical user interface builder (or GUI builder), also known as GUI designer or sometimes RAD IDE, is a software development tool that simplifies the creation of GUIs by allowing the designer to arrange graphical control elements (often calle ...

for the creation of Qt-based

Graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inst ...

s *Debugging, checking, testing and documenting: ** Integrated graphical python debugger which supports both interactive probing while suspended and auto breaking on exceptions as well as debugging multi-threaded and multiprocessing applications ** Integrated automatic code checkers (syntax, errors and style, PEP-8) for

static program analysis In computer science, static program analysis (or static analysis) is the analysis of computer programs performed without executing them, in contrast with dynamic program analysis, which is performed on programs during their execution. The term ...

as well as support of

Pylint Pylint is a static code analysis tool for the Python programming language. It is named following a common convention in Python of a "py" prefix, and a nod to the C programming lint program. It follows the style recommended by PEP 8, the Python s ...

via plug-in ** Integrated source code documentation system ** Integrated

unit testing In computer programming, unit testing is a software testing method by which individual units of source code—sets of one or more computer program modules together with associated control data, usage procedures, and operating procedures&md ...

support by having the option to run python code with command-line parameters ** Integrated interface to the enchant spell checking library ** Application diagrams *Version control: ** Integrated

version control In software engineering, version control (also known as revision control, source control, or source code management) is a class of systems responsible for managing changes to computer programs, documents, large web sites, or other collections o ...

support for

and Subversion repositories (as core plug-ins) and

git Git () is a distributed version control system: tracking changes in any set of files, usually used for coordinating work among programmers collaboratively developing source code during software development. Its goals include speed, data in ...

(as optional plug-in) *Project management and collaboration: ** Advanced project management facilities ** Integrated task management with a self-updating

To-do list Time management is the process of planning and exercising conscious control of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity. It involves of various demands upon a person relating to work, s ...

** Integrated cooperation functions (chat, shared editor) *Other: ** Integrated web browser ** Integrated support for Django (as optional plug-in) ** Running external applications from within the IDE ** Interactive Python shell including syntax hilighting and autocompletion ** Integrated CORBA support based on omniORB ** Integrated rope refactoring tool (as optional plug-in) ** Integrated interface to cx_freeze (as optional plug-in) ** Many integrated wizards for regex and Qt dialogs (as core plug-ins) ** Tools for previewing Qt forms and translations

Support for Python 2 and 3

Prior to the release of eric version 5.5.0, eric version 4 and eric version 5 coexisted and were maintained simultaneously, while eric 4 was the variant for writing software in Python version 2 and eric version 5 was the variant for writing software in Python version 3. With the release of eric version 5.5.0 both variants had been merged into one, so that all versions as of eric version 5.5.0 support writing software in Python 2 as well as in Python 3, making the separate development lanes of eric version 4 and 5 obsolete. Those two separate development lanes are no longer maintained, and the last versions prior to merging them both to 5.5.0 were versions 4.5.25 and 5.4.7.

Gallery

Releases

Versioning scheme

Until 2016, eric used a software versioning scheme with a three-sequence identifier, e.g. 5.0.1. The first sequence represents the major version number which is increased when there are significant jumps in functionality, the second sequence represents the minor number, which is incremented when only some features or significant fixes have been added, and the third sequence is the revision number, which is incremented when minor bugs are fixed or minor features have been added. From late 2016, the version numbers show the year and month of release, e.g. 16.11 for November 2016.

Release strategy

eric follows the development philosophy of ''

Release early, release often Release early, release often (also known as ship early, ship often, or time-based releases, and sometimes abbreviated RERO) is a software development philosophy that emphasizes the importance of early and frequent releases in creating a tight feed ...

'', following loosely a time-based release schedule. Currently a revision version is released around the first weekend of every month, a minor version is released annually, in most cases approximately between December and February.

Version history

The following table shows the version history of eric, starting from version 4.0.0. Only major (e.g. 6.0.0) and minor (e.g. 6.1.0) releases are listed; revision releases (e.g. 6.0.1) are omitted.

Name

Several allusions are made to the British comedy group Monty Python, which the Python programming language is named after. Eric alludes to Eric Idle, a member of the group, and

IDLE Idle generally refers to idleness, a lack of motion or energy. Idle or ''idling'', may also refer to: Technology * Idle (engine), engine running without load ** Idle speed * Idle (CPU), CPU non-utilisation or low-priority mode ** Synchronous ...

, the standard python IDE shipped with most distributions.

References

External links

* * {{Integrated development environments Code navigation tools Cross-platform free software Debuggers Free HTML editors Free integrated development environments Free integrated development environments for Python Free software programmed in Python Linux integrated development environments Linux programming tools MacOS programming tools Programming tools for Windows Python (programming language) software Software that uses Qt Software that uses Scintilla Software using the GPL license