PyScripter v5.2.3 released

PyScripter v5.2.3 is now available at Sourceforge. This is mainly a bug fix release.

• New features:
• Turkish translation added
• Issues addressed:
• #1382, #1392, #1397, #1401

PyScripter v5.2.2 released

PyScripter v5.2.2 is now available at Sourceforge. The main new feature is the support for Grok 3, which is one of the best Large Language Models available.  The reasoning variant (grok-3-mini) is also supported.

• New features:
• Support for Grok LLM
• New editor commands Next/Previous change (Shft+Ctrl+Num+/-)
• IDE option to enable/disable editor accessibility support
• Issues addressed:
• #1367, #1369, #1372, #1373, #1374, #1375

Using QGIS - Update

 QGIS is a widely used, free and open source, GIS software package.  This is an update on how to use it with PyScripter.   I have used the currently latest version for Windows (3.42) but you can adapt the instructions to other recent versions of QGIS.

Create a command file "PyScripter-QGIS.cmd" with the following content:

@echo off

rem Adapt the following line to match your installation

set QGIS_ROOT=C:\Program Files\QGIS 3.42.0

call "%QGIS_ROOT%\bin\o4w_env.bat"

path %OSGEO4W_ROOT%\apps\qgis\bin;%PATH%

@echo on

rem Set VSI cache to be used as buffer, see #6448

set VSI_CACHE=TRUE

set VSI_CACHE_SIZE=1000000

set GDAL_FILENAME_IS_UTF8=YES

set QT_PLUGIN_PATH=%OSGEO4W_ROOT%\apps\qgis\qtplugins;%OSGEO4W_ROOT%\apps\qt5\plugins

set PYTHONPATH=%QGIS_ROOT%\apps\qgis\python;%PYTHONPATH%

pushd "c:\Program Files\PyScripter"

rem Adapt the following line to match the python version that comes with QGIS

start "PyScripter" /B "PyScripter.exe" --PYTHON312 --PYTHONDLLPATH="%QGIS_ROOT%\apps\Python312"

popd

Save it anywhere you want and run it. 

Then in the PyScripter python interpreter you can do:

*** Python 3.12.9 (main, Feb  7 2025, 14:34:44) [MSC v.1938 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32. ***
*** Remote Python engine is active ***
>>> from qgis.core import *
>>> import qgis.utils
>>> from PyQt5.QtCore import QSettings
>>> 

That's it.

PyScripter v5.2.1 released

PyScripter v5.2.1 is now available at Sourceforge.  This release brings a number of significant improvements in the areas of LLM-Assisted coding and Debugging.   This is the list of the main new features and fixes:

• New Features:
• LLM Support improvements
• Added support for DeepSeek LLM
• Added support for DeepSeek and OpenAI "o" LLM reasoning models
• Improved display of LLM output
• Syntax Highligting for 300 languges
• Exposed the temperature LLM parameter
• Printing of LLM output
• Debugging
• Much faster debugging for python >= 3.13
• Debugging improvements for python >= 3.10
• Added support for breakpoint ignore counts
• Surround editor selection with brackets and quotes
• Added two new styles: Windows11 MineShaft (new default) and Windows 11 Impressive Light
• Issues addressed:
• #1347

DeepSeek and Other improvements to LLM-Assisted Coding

 The forthcoming version of PyScripter has a number of improvements to LLL-assisted coding:

• Support for DeepSeek   

 When it comes to coding, DeepSeek is simply amazing.  It is now supported both in the Chat and Assistant.

• The rendering of the LLM responses is much improved and it is now on a par with the Web interface of the LLM providers.

Code is presented in code boxes, and using the icons in the header, you can copy the code into the clipboard or directly into a new editor.

Markdown is now rendered perfectly:

• Support for DeepSeek and OpenAI LLM reasoning models

You can now follow the reasoning behind the answers, using DeepSeek's deepseek-reasoner model or OpenAI's "o" models, such o1-mini.  The reasoning is presented without cluttering the output.

 

• Other improvements  

• The temperature LLM model parameter is exposed by the Chat UI.   It is a decimal number between 0 and 2 that controls the randomness of the results (higher values leed to more random answers).

• You can now print the chat topic content. 

• Syntax highlighting for about 300 programming languages is available.  So you can now ask questions not just about python but also for other languages.

 And don't forget the Assistant.  While coding Assistant completion is available by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Space. as well as by using the editor context menu.

Breakpoint conditions and ignore counts

 PyScripter has always supported conditional breakpoints.   Conditional breakpoints allow you to finetune the debugging experience, by only stopping execution when certain conditions are met.

Consider the following example:

def main():

    sum = 0

    for i in range(1000):

        sum = sum + i

    print(sum)

if __name__ == '__main__':

    main()

Say you are interested to know when sum becomes >= 1000.  If you set a breakpoint at the 4th line of the code, it will be tedious and time consuming to reach that point.   What you can do is to set a conditional breakpoint:

When you debug the code, execution will stop at the break point only when the condition is met (i = 46).

As you can tell from the screenshot above, the forthcoming version of PyScripter, introduces and new breakpoint property "Ignore Count".  If you set the the Ignore Count to a positive integer value, then the breakpoint will be ignored a number of times equal to that value.  So in the above example if you remove the condition and set the Ignore Count to 100, execution will stop when i becomes 100.  When you resume execution, the breakpoint will be ignored another 100 times.

There are a few ways to set the breakpoint properties Condition and Ignore Count.

• In the Breakpoints Window select the property you want to change and press F2.  This will allow you to edit the property directly.  Press Enter when you are done:

• In the Breakpoints Window right-click on the breakpoint and select "Breakpoint Properties...".  A dialog box like the following pops up and you can edit the values.

• In the editor, when you click on a breakpoint you get a context menu (new feature) from which you can select "Breakpoint Properties..."

Another breakpoint tip:

• You can quickly disable/enable a breakpoint by Ctrl + clicking on it in the editor gutter.

Teaser: Super fast debugging is coming to PyScripter

 You expect code to run with debugging much slower than without.  Indeed this is the case and with python, debugging can be sometimes painfully slow.  

A relatively recent, low-level feature that was introduces in Python 3.12 is monitoring. Monitoring allows programmers to hook into low level events that occur during the execution of code.   This is similar to tracing, which is used by debuggers, but with much greater granularity and control.  It turns out that monitoring can help make faster debuggers.  Much faster.  The next version of PyScripter will include a new debugger that is based on monitoring for python versions 3.12+.  Just to give you a taste of the speed-up you get, consider the following code:

import time

def test():

    start_time = time.time()

    for i in range(1000):

        for j in range(1000):

            j + i

    cost = time.time() - start_time

    print("Elapsed time: ", cost)

    f(0)

def f(x):

    # Set breakpoint here

    x *= 2

    return x + 1

test()

If you set a break point at the line "f(0)" and start debugging, this is what you get with the PyScripter v5.1.4 and python 3.13. 

*** Remote Interpreter Reinitialized ***

Elapsed time:  2.5882363319396973

[Dbg]>>> 

There are a million iterations that happen before you reach the breakpoint, so this takes about 2.5 seconds. If you do the same with the forthcoming release of PyScripter you get:

*** Remote Interpreter Reinitialized ***

Elapsed time:  0.016160964965820312

[Dbg]>>> 

This is more than x150 speed-up.  The code until you reach the breakpoint, runs almost as fast as without debugging.  The new debugger shines when you debug over loops or other pieces of code that it is executed repetitively.  For other types of code the speedup is not as impressive.

The new release also back-ports some debugging improvements introduced in python 3.14 to python versions 3.10+.   So users of these versions will experience faster debugging.