Eric (software)

eric is written in the programming language Python and its primary use is for developing software written in Python. It is usable for development of any combination of Python 3 or Python 2, Qt 5 or Qt 4 and PyQt 5 or PyQt 4 projects, on Linux, macOS and Microsoft Windows platforms.

Characteristics

eric is written in Python and uses the PyQt Python bindings for the Qt GUI toolkit. By design, eric acts as a front end for several programs, for example the QScintilla editor widget.

Features

The key features of eric 6 are:

• Source code editing:
  • Unlimited number of editors
  • Configurable window layout
  • Configurable syntax highlighting
  • Sourcecode autocompletion
  • Sourcecode calltips
  • Sourcecode folding
  • Brace matching
  • Error highlighting
  • Advanced search functionality including project wide search and replace
  • Integrated class browser
  • Integrated profiling and code coverage support
• GUI designing:
  • Integration of Qt Designer, a Graphical user interface builder for the creation of Qt-based Graphical user interfaces
• 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 as well as support of Pylint via plug-in
  • Integrated source code documentation system
  • Integrated unit testing 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 support for Mercurial and Subversion repositories (as core plug-ins) and git (as optional plug-in)
• Project management and collaboration:
  • Advanced project management facilities
  • Integrated task management with a self-updating To-do list
  • 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 highlighting 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.